How your favorite fish sticks might be funding Russia's war
The Indicator from Planet Money
NPR
4.7 • 9.5K Ratings
🗓️ 26 February 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Russia exports billions of dollars worth of fish a year across the world. But after the invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. banned imports of Russian fish. It turns out those bans are only so effective. Today on the show, how Russia has dodged import bans to keep selling billions of dollars worth of seafood every year, and how the U.S. has struggled to stop it.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | NPR. |
| 0:02.1 | This is the indicator from Planet Money. |
| 0:13.8 | I'm Waylon Wong here with friend of the show, Nate Hedgy, from the Public Radio podcast Outside In. |
| 0:20.1 | Hey, Waylon. |
| 0:20.8 | Hello. Hey, Waylon. Hello. |
| 0:22.0 | Hey, you are a fish fan, right? |
| 0:24.3 | The food, not the jam band, of course. |
| 0:25.9 | I like the fish food ice cream. |
| 0:29.4 | I do like fish generally, yes. |
| 0:32.8 | So if you're in a grocery store, grabbing a bag of frozen fish sticks for the kids or maybe a can of, yeah, or yourself, or maybe a can of pink salmon, you might see a label that says product of China. |
| 0:45.4 | You toss it in the cart, you think nothing of it. |
| 0:48.4 | But if you follow those fish sticks through the maze of international shipping lanes and processing plants, |
| 0:54.5 | you might find that they weren't actually caught in China, but instead, Russia. |
| 1:00.5 | And those fish fingers are helping fund the Kremlin's war in Ukraine. |
| 1:05.1 | That war entered its fifth year this week. |
| 1:08.5 | Today on the show, how Russia has dodged import bans to keep selling |
| 1:12.3 | billions of dollars worth of seafood every year. The U.S. has been trying to stop it, but how |
| 1:17.6 | successful has it really been? |
| 1:24.4 | Waylon, do you remember that S&L skit from almost 20 years ago when Amy Poehler was playing Hillary Clinton and Tina Faye was playing Alaska governor and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin? |
| 1:34.5 | Yes, the golden age of political impersonations. |
| 1:37.7 | I believe that diplomacy should be the cornerstone of any foreign policy. And I can see Russia from my house. |
| 1:47.3 | Now, obviously, Sarah Palin could not see Russia from her house in Alaska. |
... |
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