No love is lost between Russia and Ukraine, its former satellite state. But conflict is now brewing over an unexpected fight: import and regulatory issues surrounding Ukrainian cheese sold in Russian stores. The Moscow News has the story:

Russian-Ukrainian relations face a new hurdle as Russia’s chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko said Ukrainian cheeses aren’t cheesy enough by Russia’s standards. 

Local consumers need to be aware that they are buying a “cheese product,” and not actual cheese, given the amount of palm oil “used without control” by many Ukrainian cheese factories, Onishchenko told Interfax on Thursday.

A special probe has been launched by Russia’s sanitary watchdog Rospotrebnadzor as a part of a larger investigation, the agency reported.

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Imported cheeses occupy nearly one-half of the Russian market, the Institute for the Agricultural Market Environment wrote in a research report in May 2011.

And Ukraine exports tens of thousands of tons to Russia. “Only in the past 10 months the approximate volume of [cheese] imports was 55,500 tons,” Onishchenko told Interfax on Thursday.

Read the full story here.