The Russian government has spent over a decade seeking to do away with this lingering vestige of post-Soviet misery. In the latest attempt, the government imposed an open-ended ban on American chicken imports that started Tuesday, ostensibly because United States companies had failed to adhere to new food safety regulations.

Representatives from both countries began talks on Tuesday in Moscow in an attempt to resolve the dispute, though neither side seemed prepared to make concessions.

The move might cause poultry prices here to spike, but there was nevertheless a tinge of national pride last week when Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin told Russian poultry producers that Russia was no longer dependent on Bush legs.

“Unfortunately, among many of our partners  and above all I mean companies from the United States  we still do not see a readiness to observe our standards,” he said. “If some of our foreign suppliers do not want or are not in a position to fulfill our safety requirements, then we will use other sources.”

This has no doubt unnerved American producers, who gained a foothold in the Russian market in the early 1990s, in part, their Russian critics say, by swamping Russian producers with cheap chicken. Since then, Russian officials have angered American producers and officials with a raft of restrictions and quotas meant to help domestic producers.