The McDonald’s group pledged on Monday to protect tens of thousands of workers in Russia, shortly after it was announced that it would definitively cease operations in the former Soviet republic.
“Things will be protected,” Elena Chilingarian, the company’s spokesperson on Russian soil, told EFE.
A representative of the McDonald’s group has announced plans to start a new ‘fast food’ company from existing installations, which will likely open its doors in June this year.
“You will be informed about this later, because this is an opening ceremony that will be held in 45 regions of Russia,” Chilingarian said.
CEO Chris Kempczinski said earlier that the chain is proud of its more than 60,000 employees in Russia and that the decision to close the business in the country was “extremely difficult”.
“Our commitment to our values means we can no longer stay there,” he admitted.
The McDonalds group said on Monday it will withdraw from the Russian market and, after 30 years of operation, has begun a process to sell the restaurant chain nationwide.
“The humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine and the unpredictable environment to operate there led McDonald’s to conclude that the business in Russia is not sustainable and is not consistent with McDonald’s values,” he noted. press American and international.
The departure of the group has great symbolic and economic weight, as the ‘fast food’ chain was one of the first Western brands to be founded in Moscow in 1990, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
McDonald’s presence in Russia has become a symbol of the end of the Cold War.
On March 8, before the official start of the so-called “special military operation” authorized by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the group announced a temporary halt to activities in Russia with the closure of some 850 cafeterias.
But since then, McDonald’s has continued to pay employees’ salaries in Russia.
source: Noticias
