Moscow, 1 Oct - Russia banned on Tuesday imports of all Chinese milk or food containing milk, citing concerns they may contain traces of melamine, RIA news agency quoted the head of state consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor as saying.
Chinese dairy products and other food containing milk have been taken off shelves in Asia, Africa and the European Union in recent weeks after four infants died in China after being fed milk powder contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine.
Melamine causes kidney stones and other complications when ingested.
Rospotrebnadzor head Gennady Onishchenko told RIA that Moscow was concerned that imported Chinese food containing milk could also hold melamine, but it had so far received no official information from Beijing.
"This unclear situation with China and a lack of this nation's official position force us to take extreme measures -- to ban all food products from China, in which recipes contain milk," Onishchenko said.
"These are biscuits, sweets -- all in all, more than a thousand kinds of products."
Russia is a large importer of milk, but China is not a major exporter of the product to the vast nation. Official data on Chinese milk imports to Russia were not immediately available.