Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed his government to “monitor” exports of food to countries that Moscow deems as “hostile” as the West weighs up levying more sanctions against Moscow. Putin announced the move during a meeting on agriculture on Tuesday, just days after the European Union proposed sweeping new sanctions against the country in response to allegations of Russian forces committing war crimes in Ukraine. “Against the backdrop of global food shortages, this year we will have to be prudent with supplies abroad and carefully monitor such exports to countries that are clearly hostile towards us,” Putin said at a meeting on agriculture. The president noted that Russia’s food production “fully” covered domestic needs and called on officials to increase the replacement of foreign imports with local production. “We need to set clear targets for import substitution and persistently pursue them in the very near future,” he said in reference to the …