Dhaka: Russia has banned buffalo meat imports from several Indian processors after finding traces of foot-and-mouth disease in meat samples, reports the New Indian Express.

Russian authorities are reportedly halting imports of meat from four Indian processors after finding evidence of the virus, which apparently slipped through comprehensive pre-export testing in a process overseen by the Indian government.

However, Russia is not banning all imports of meat from India — as it did when it reportedly found traces of a banned growth promotant in Australian beef.

Russia has made no secret of the fact that it wants to block Western suppliers following tensions over the crash of the Malaysia MH17 passenger jet over Ukraine last year.

Dutch investigators on Tuesday reported that they had found conclusive evidence that the aircraft was brought down by a Russian BUK missile.

India is the world’s largest beef exporter — which is actually Buffalo meat, not cow meat. Meat of cow, oxen and calf is prohibited under the foreign trade policy for export. The figure related to buffalo meat exports in the financial year 2014-15 shows growth of 10 per cent with total exports touching `29,282 crore.

But, the latest figure released by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) says buffalo meat exports between April-August 2015 have gone down by 8.82 per cent.

The APEDA, which comes under the Ministry of Commerce, says in April-August 2014-15, India exported 5,35,299 MTs of buffalo meat, earning 10382 crore. However, this year during the same period, India’s buffalo meat export was only 4,68,381 MTs, which earned the country a total of  9,466 crore.