McDonald's and Starbucks in Russia to temporarily close

Fast food chain was first to make announcement, followed by coffee company and PepsiCo and Coca-Cola

Sony's game division and Nintendo said they have suspended shipments of software and hardware to Russia. Nintendo said it is suspending shipping all products to Russia "for the foreseeable future... due to considerable volatility surrounding the logistics of shipping and distributing physical goods." AFP

Rio Tinto said it "is in the process of terminating all commercial relationships it has with any Russian business". It has an alumina joint venture with Moscow-based United Rusal International. Reuters

McDonald's is temporarily closing all 847 of its restaurants in Russia. AFP

Starbucks is suspending all business activity in Russia, including shipments of its products and cafes run by licencees. AFP

Coca-Cola is suspending sales in Russia. Coca-Cola said its business in Russia and Ukraine contributed about 1 to 2 per cent of the company's net operating revenue in 2021. Reuters

PepsiCo is suspending sales of its sodas in Russia. It said it would continue to sell daily essentials, such as milk and other dairy offerings, baby formula and baby food, in Russia. Getty Images / AFP

Yum Brands, behind KFC and Pizza Hut, also said it was suspending investment in Russia. Reuters

Toyota is halting production at its plant in St Petersburg, and will halt vehicle shipments to Russia. Reuters

Ikea said it would suspend its activities in Russia and Belarus, affecting nearly 15,000 employees, 17 stores and three production sites. AFP

Honda will stop exports of cars and motorcycles to Russia. EPA

Jaguar Land Rover has paused the delivery of its cars to Russia due to "trading challenges".

Airbus is suspending sale of parts and support services to airline customers in Russia. Reuters

Boeing has suspended major operations in Moscow and temporarily closed its office in Kyiv. It is also suspending parts, maintenance and technical support services for Russian airlines. Reuters

Nike has made merchandise purchases on its website and app unavailable in Russia as it cannot guarantee delivery of goods to customers in the country, an update on the sportswear maker's website showed. Bloomberg

German sportswear company Puma has stopped deliveries to Russia, but its 100 stores are open. Getty Images

Shell is to exit all its Russian operations, including a major liquefied natural gas plant. The company also plans to end its involvement in the Nord Stream II gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. PA

BP is exiting its 19.75 per cent shareholding in Russian oil giant Rosneft after pressure from the UK government. BP has operated in Russia for more than 30 years. Reuters

ExxonMobil will cease operations in Russia and refrain from making new investments in the country. It holds a 30 per cent stake, alongside Rosneft, Japan's Sodeco and India's ONGC Videsh, in the Sakhalin Island oil and gas fields in Russia’s far east. Its business in the country is valued at more than $4 billion. AFP

Eni said it would withdraw from the Blue Stream gas pipeline linking Russia to Turkey, in which it has a 50 per cent stake. The company controls the gas pipeline -- which links the two countries via the Black Sea -- equally with Russian energy giant Gazprom. Reuters

British Gas owner Centrica has said it will exit gas supply agreements with its Russian counterparts, including Gazprom. Centrica said it currently has a medium-term contract with Gazprom Marketing and Trading, the Russian energy company's UK entity, through which gas can be sourced from the open market. Reuters

Norwegian energy group Equinor said it will start the process of divesting from its joint ventures in Russia. Reuters

HSBC said it was starting to wind down relations with a host of Russian banks including the second-largest, VTB, one of those targeted by sanctions, a memo seen by Reuters showed. AFP

Volkswagen suspended deliveries of cars to dealers in Russia. 'Deliveries are to resume as soon as the effects of the sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States have been clarified', a VW representative said. AP

Swedish automaker Volvo Cars said it would suspend car shipments to the Russian market until further notice, becoming the first international car maker to do so. Supplied

GM said it would suspend all vehicle exports to Russia until further notice. The Detroit company does not have plants in Russia, only sells about 3,000 vehicles annually in the country and has limited supply-chain exposure. AFP

Danish shipping giant Maersk said that it would stop taking new non-essential orders to and from Russia, owing to sanctions imposed over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. AFP

Singapore-headquartered container shipping company Ocean Network Express has suspended bookings to and from Russia. Reuters

AerCap Holdings, the world's biggest plane lessor with about 5 per cent of its fleet leased to Russian airlines, said it will stop trading with Russian customers. Reuters

US-based United Parcel Service said it is halting delivery services to Russia and Ukraine. Bloomberg

FedEx also said it is temporarily suspending inbound and outbound services to Ukraine and inbound services to Russia until further notice. AP

Microsoft said it would remove Russian state-owned media outlet RT's mobile apps from its Windows App store and ban ads on Russian state-sponsored media. Reuters

Google has barred RT and other Russian channels from receiving money for ads on websites, apps and YouTube videos. Reuters

German heavy-goods vehicle group Daimler Truck has said it will cease its co-operation with Russian lorry-maker Kamaz. AFP

Motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson has suspended shipments of its bikes to Russia. Pictured, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reuters

Facebook owner Meta Platforms has restricted access to accounts run by Sputnik and RT in the EU. Reuters

Apple has paused all product sales and limited the functionality of other services in Russia. Reuters

Live updates: follow the latest news on Russia-Ukraine

McDonald's said on Tuesday it would temporarily close all 847 of its restaurants in Russia, increasing pressure on other global brands to pause operations in the country following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Starbucks followed suit on Tuesday, and PepsiCo and Coca-Cola announced their halt of sales apart from essential goods.

Yum Brands, behind KFC and Pizza Hut, also said it was suspending investment in Russia.

The closure of the McDonald’s restaurants holds particular significance for Russia, where the first shop to open in central Moscow in 1990 became a symbol of flourishing American capitalism as the Soviet Union fell.

McDonald's said it would continue to pay salaries to its 62,000 employees in Russia.

Because of its large size and global reach, the chain is often copied by other companies if it takes a stance on an issue or makes a major operational change.

“If they decide to do something, then probably others will follow,” said international franchise consultant William Edwards.

Major global brands, including McDonald's and Pepsi, have been pressured to pause operations in Russia by bodies including the New York state's pension fund. Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation".

Coffee company Starbucks said on Tuesday that it is suspending all business activity in Russia, including shipments of its products and cafes run by licencees.

The company said that Kuwait-based Alshaya Group, which operates at least 100 Starbucks cafes in Russia, will "provide support to the nearly 2,000 partners in Russia who depend on Starbucks for their livelihood".

Yum Brands, parent company of fried chicken chain KFC, is pausing investment in Russia, a key market that helped the brand achieve record development last year, the company said.

The company has at least 1,000 KFC and 50 Pizza Hut shops in Russia that are nearly all run by independent franchisees.

It said in a post on its website dated Monday that it had "suspended all investment and restaurant development in Russia while we continue to assess additional options".

A patron drinks a coffee in Starbucks cafe in St Petersburg, Russia, in November 2021. EPA

Coca-Cola Co and PepsiCo said on Tuesday they were suspending sales of their sodas in Russia.

Coca-Cola said its business in Russia and Ukraine contributed about 1 to 2 per cent of the company's net operating revenue in 2021.

PepsiCo, whose colas were one of the few western products allowed in the Soviet Union before its collapse, said it would continue to sell daily essentials, such as milk and other dairy offerings, baby formula and baby food, in Russia.

McDonald's opened in Pushkin Square 32 years ago as the Soviet Union was collapsing. That new restaurant represented the thawing Cold War tension at a time when some young Russians were desperate to buy blue jeans and other Americana.

“It's impossible to predict when we might be able to reopen our restaurants in Russia,” McDonald's chief executive Chris Kempczinski said in a note sent to staff on Tuesday and posted on the company's website.

“We are experiencing disruptions to our supply chain along with other operational impacts. We will also closely monitor the humanitarian situation.”

Of its nearly 850 Russian shops, 84 per cent are owned by the company and the rest are run mostly by one Moscow-based franchisee, Rosinter Restaurants Holding.

A Ukrainian serviceman walks past the vertical tail fin of a Russian Su-34 bomber lying in a damaged building in Kharkiv, Ukraine. AP Photo

An apartment building damaged after shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine. AP Photo

A woman puts her head in her hands as she sits on a cot in a shelter, set up for displaced persons fleeing Ukraine, inside a school gymnasium in Przemysl, Poland. AP Photo

Belarussian and suspected Russian helicopters on the flight line at Machulishchy Air Base outside Minsk, Belarus. AP Photo

Children look on as people fleeing Russia's invasion of Ukraine shelter in a school, in Drohobych, Ukraine. Reuters

Families eat in the shelter. Reuters

A woman looks out from a building damaged by Russian shelling in Mykolaiv, 100 kilometres away from Odesa, western Ukraine. AFP

A wounded Ukrainian man waits in the corridor of the central hospital of Mykolaiv. AFP

An elderly woman is carried in a shopping cart after being rescued from Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine. AP

A woman reacts as a train carrying children from Kyiv's Central Children's Hospital leaves the Ukrainian capital on its way to Lviv. Reuters

A girl sits in an improvised bomb shelter in Mariupol, Ukraine. AP

An elderly woman is coated in snow as she sits in a wheelchair after being rescued from Irpin. AP

Belarusian volunteers take part in military exercises at the Belarusian Company base in Kyiv. AP

Lessa, left, director of a nursery school turned into a refugee shelter, cries as she hugs Olega, who arrived from Kyiv with her baby, near Lviv. EPA

Ukrainians pass a damaged bridge as they flee from Irpin. AP

A man carries an elderly woman as people continue to leave Irpin. AP

A soldier stands on a barricade made of sandbags in central Odesa, Ukraine. Reuters

A charred Russian tank and captured tanks in the Sumy region. Reuters

People rest at a temporary shelter for Ukrainian refugees in Przemysl, Poland. AFP

Ukraine's ambassador to the Netherlands, Maksym Kononenko, third right, and his wife Tetiana Doroshenko, fourth left, attend a meeting of members of the Ukrainian community with Dutch King Willem-Alexander, third left, and Queen Maxima, second left, to discuss the situation in Ukraine, in The Hague. EPA

A Ukrainian soldier looks at the destruction after shelling in Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv. AFP

A refugee holds her dog as they wait for trains to Poland in Lviv, Ukraine. Reuters

A woman ties ribbons in Ukrainian national flag colours in a girl's hair as people wait at a refugee assistance centre in Prague, Czech Republic. EPA

A Ukrainian soldier carries an elderly woman crossing the Irpin river on the outskirts of Kyiv. AP

Lena, who had never left Ukraine before fleeing into Moldova, feeds Dasha, 3, soon after crossing the border. Erin Clare Brown for The National

Refugees without immediate plans to move further inland can stay the night in tents set up on Moldova's side of the border. Erin Clare Brown for The National

Tatiana and her son wait for a van that will carry them from the Moldovan border to Chisinau. Erin Clare Brown for The National

Each night, the Palanca refugee camp in Moldova feeds up to 300 people who arrive with no onward plans. Erin Clare Brown for The National

People pass a damaged bridge while fleeing the town of Irpin, close to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. AP

A Ukrainian soldier stands guard next to a church in Irpin. EPA

A firefighter holds the baby of a Ukrainian refugee at the border in Romania. AP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks in Kyiv. Reuters

A Ukrainian soldier at a checkpoint in Kyiv. AP

Ukrainian activist Ihor Mazur, left, a veteran of the war in the country's east, looks at a night-vision device in Kyiv. AP

Ambassadors attend a UN Security Council meeting on threats to international security after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in New York. Reuters

Ukraine's UN ambassador Sergey Kyslytsya holds a paper with an image of Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as he addresses the Security Council in New York. Reuters

A road sign put up in support of Mr Zelenskyy outside Russia's embassy in Washington. AFP

Ukrainian refugees at the train station in Lviv, western Ukraine. EPA

Lethal and non-lethal Ukrainian aid is loaded on to a plane bound for Poland by Canadian soldiers in Trenton, Ontario. Reuters

Volunteers carry medical aid and necessities at a train station in Lviv. EPA

Everton players wear T-shirts in support of Ukraine as they warm up for an English Premier League football match against Tottenham Hotspur. AP

A residential building damaged by Russian shelling in Chernihiv, Ukraine. Reuters

A man walks past a checkpoint in heavy snow in Lviv. Getty

A man fleeing fighting in Irpin waits to cross a river after Russian forces entered the city. Getty

Soldiers assist Irpin residents underneath a damaged bridge as they flee. Getty

Ukrainian civilians who volunteered to join the Territorial Defence Forces take part in a training exercise in Odesa after Russia's invasion. Reuters

Men carry a body to a lorry as people flee from the frontline town of Irpin. EPA

A Ukrainian police officer runs with a child as the sound of shelling echoes nearby in Irpin. AP

Parents and children struggle to board a train in Lviv. AP