Ukraine on Monday banned the transit of Russian trucks across its territory in a tit-for-tat response to an escalating trade war between the feuding ex-Soviet states.

Ukraine on Monday banned the transit of Russian trucks across its territory in a tit-for-tat response to an escalating trade war between the feuding ex-Soviet states.

The Ukrainian government said its decision was taken because Russia had "violated the World Trade Organization's rules and procedures and bilateral intergovernmental agreements... by unilaterally halting the movement of Ukrainian trucks."

It added that the measure would stay in effect until Ukraine "receives an explanation from Russia."

Russia's transport ministry said on Sunday it was imposing the ban "in response to the suspension of passage" of its own trucks across Ukraine.

Nationalist groups in the west of war-scarred Ukraine had spent days trying to keep Russian trucks from crossing into the rest of Europe in protest over the Kremlin's alleged support for pro-Russian rebels in the country's east.

But no formal decision to stop Russian traffic had been taken by the Ukrainian government itself until Monday.