Photo from artyomsalt.com

"The indicators of the provision of salt are underestimated. This is connected with the quite large amount of salt [that came] from Ukraine," he said.

"Because of the low price for logistics it was profitable for Russian business to source it from Ukraine," Volkov said.

"Now we have to have a reorientation of supply sources," he added.

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The annual demand of the Russian Federation for salt is about 1.5-1.6 million tonnes. Last year, Ukraine supplied the Russian market with 500,000 tonnes of salt, or 80% of Russia’s total imports of the commodity.

The largest foreign supplier of salt to Russia is a Ukrainian state enterprise Artemsol. In 2013, the company delivered to Russia 1.6 million tones of food and technical salt.