Tony Abbott warns 'bully' Russia of more sanctions over Malaysia Airlines MH17 disaster, warns Vladimir Putin against Ukraine 'invasion'

Updated

A tit-for-tat trade ban between Australia and Russia is emerging, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott revealing Australia is working towards imposing stronger sanctions over the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 disaster.

Mr Abbott, who says Russia "has been a bully", has called on president Vladimir Putin to hold back his forces from crossing the border into Ukraine or risk becoming an international outcast.

"Right at this moment, Russian forces are massing on the border with Ukraine," Mr Abbott told reporters in Sydney.

"If there is any movement by his forces across the border, it won't be a humanitarian mission, it will be an invasion. It will be an invasion."

Overnight, Russia slapped a year-long ban on most food imports from a range of Western nations, including Australia, in response to sanctions imposed on Moscow.

Australia imposed some sanctions against Russia and individuals in Ukraine in March after it annexed Crimea.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Government threatens tougher sanctions against Russia (7pm TV News NSW)

The Government strengthened them in May, but refrained from further action while Russian assistance was sought to secure the MH17 crash site.

"I want to say very clearly that we are working towards stronger sanctions," Mr Abbott warned.

"Now that our personnel have withdrawn from the site, now that our personnel are in the process of returning to The Netherlands after largely completing Operation Bring Them Home, certainly you will find increased sanctions by Australia."

Mr Abbott says Russia can avoid further sanctions by taking a number of steps.

"The way to avoid increased sanctions is for Russia to call off what appears to be in preparation for Russia, to respect the independence of Ukraine, to stop interfering in the affairs of Ukraine, to stop supporting separatists in Ukraine," he said.

The Prime Minister says the Government will try to assist Australian farmers and exporters affected by the sanctions.

"I don't want to underestimate the impact of what Russia is proposing but I also want to see it in proportion, to keep it in perspective," he said.

"And while from are a few hundreds of millions of Australian agriculture exports to Russia, in the great scheme of a Australia's agricultural exports, these are relatively small amounts."

Australia exports more than $400 million in agricultural products to Russia each year.

According to Department of Foreign Affairs statistics, Australian beef exports to Russia were worth $150 million in 2013, while butter exports accounted for $64 million.

Live animals excluding seafood were worth $55 million and meats excluding beef were worth a further $48 million.

Overall, two-way trade between Australia and Russia in 2013 was worth about $1.79 billion in 2013.

Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce says his already working with other countries, such as Indonesia, to get them to buy more Australian beef and diary.

Sanctions 'largely symbolic' The ABC's Peter Ryan has spoken to University of New South Wales economist Tim Harcourt.



The former chief economist at Austrade says the sanctions are largely symbolic, but ordinary Russians could be hurt.



"They'd have to keep it on for a very, very long time and ultimately Russia would start hurting its own people before it hurt any Australian farmer," Mr Harcourt said.



Listen to Peter Ryan's report for AM and find extra audio of the Tim Harcourt interview here The ABC's Peter Ryan has spoken to University of New South Wales economist Tim Harcourt.The former chief economist at Austrade says the sanctions are largely symbolic, but ordinary Russians could be hurt."They'd have to keep it on for a very, very long time and ultimately Russia would start hurting its own people before it hurt any Australian farmer," Mr Harcourt said.

"Last night and yesterday I was talking to the Indonesians about their capacity for the purchase of more beef and dairy products. So we just try to work with these issues as they're presented to us," he told ABC NewsRadio.

Australia is not offering direct assistance to farmers at this stage.

"Hopefully, if we manage this properly, we can find alternate markets to basically purchase the quota the Russians don't," Mr Joyce said.

"I wouldn't be ruling anything in or anything out at this stage but I would hope that we're able to manage it without direct assistance."

Topics: world-politics, government-and-politics, foreign-affairs, unrest-conflict-and-war, air-and-space, accidents, rural, agribusiness, trade, business-economics-and-finance, australia, asia, russian-federation, ukraine

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