Yesterday’s embargo is not the first time Russia has threatened the livelihoods of fishermen in the north-east.
Dozens of giant Russian trawlers invaded waters off Rockall in the spring of 2000, alarming Government ministers and Scottish fishermen alike.
The big “klondyke” vessels began taking thousands of tonnes of haddock each a week from the recently deregulated area.
Although the zone, 250 miles west of Scotland, was closed to European fishing boats in 2002 to safeguard future stocks, the Russian trawlers defied efforts to enforce a fishing ban for years.
Claims that the boats were “hoovering up” and plundering juvenile haddock stocks took years of diplomacy by representatives from the whitefish industry and government at high level meetings in Murmansk and Moscow to solve.
The problem stemmed from Britain signing up to the UN Convention on the Seas in 1998 which made the island of St Kilda the reference point for UK fishing boundaries rather than the small outcrop of Rockall.
After four years of negotiations, Moscow relented and agreed to abide by a permanent ban on fishing the international waters, which are regulated by the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC).