Russian authorities launched nationwide inspections of McDonald’s restaurants yesterday after shutting three popular Moscow outlets on apparent government orders aimed at striking back against biting Western sanctions.
It was the latest ‘tit for tat retaliatory move in an escalating and economically-bruising trade war over a bloody conflict in Ukraine that has plunged East-West relations into what some have dubbed a “new Cold War”.
Russia has a long and intersting history of using “sudden food safety concerns” as a political weapon against unfriendly states.
It has cited health grounds to ban Ukrainian products and halted imports of Georgian wine before going to war with the Caucasus nation in 2008.
Washington and its EU allies have imposed restrictions on broad sections of Russia’s economy in response to the Kremlin’s perceived attempts to carve up Ukraine as punishment for its decision to anchor its future with the West.
Russia responded by blacklisting nearly all US and European food imports and threatening even more drastic measures that could effectively cut off the country from Western goods for the first time since the Soviet era.
