Food safety agency to conduct checks on US chain's restaurants in the Urals, a day after four Moscow branches shutdown.
The shutdowns come in the wake of rising tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine.
After the US and the European Union slapped sanctions on a range of Russian banks and crucial industries last month, Moscow responded with a wide-ranging ban on food products imported from those regions.
One of those restaurants, on Moscow's central Pushkin Square, was the first to open in the Soviet Union in 1990, drawing crowds of thousands that circled around the block. The restaurant became a symbol of domestic reform and openness with the West, and is one of the company's most visited venues in Russia.
McDonalds could not be immediately reached for comment about the checks in Sverdlovsk, but a statement posted on the Russian version of its website on Wednesday said the company was doing "all it can for a speedy opening" of the four Moscow restaurants.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/euro...probe-into-mcdonalds-2014821113138206979.html
