The list of companies continuing to operate in Russia is shrinking by the minute, but several dozen corporations including multinational manufacturers and fast-food chains are still doing business in the country despite intense public pressure to withdraw over its invasion of Ukraine.
McDonald’s was among the big-name companies to announce last week that it would temporarily close its 850 restaurants in Russia. Cola-Cola and PepsiCo quickly followed suit, as did restaurant chains Burger King, Papa John’s, Little Caesars and others.
While Starbucks and McDonald’s have both announced their complete withdrawals from Russia in recent days, Hard Rock continues to operate its Hard Rock Cafes in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia.
The company, acquired by the Seminole Tribe of Florida in 2007, “will suspend all future investment and development in Russia and donate all profits from the two franchise locations in Russia to humanitarian causes in Ukraine,” Hard Rock said in an emailed statement to CBS MoneyWatch.
Another purveyor of fast food, U.S. pizza chain Sbarro, is also staying put. Operating Russia since 1997, the privately held company signed a new franchise deal in the country in 2017. It has partnered with Horeca Band Group and plans to open more than 300 Sbarro restaurants in Russia by 2027. It did not respond to a request for comment.
Johnson & Johnson — which has corporate offices in Moscow, Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg — said in a statement, “We remain committed to providing essential health products to those in need in Ukraine, Russia, and the region, in compliance with current sanctions and while adapting to the rapidly changing situation on the ground.”
The reluctance of drugmakers to pause operations in Russia is being met with a growing chorus of criticism.
Pharmaceutical companies that say they must continue to manufacture drugs in Russia for humanitarian reasons are “being misguided at best, cynical in the medium case, and outright deplorably misleading and deceptive,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management who is tracking which companies have curtailed operations in Russia. He noted that banks and technology companies also provide essential services.
“Russians are put in a tragic position of unearned suffering. If we continue to make life palatable for them, then we are continuing to support the regime,” Sonnenfeld said. “These drug companies will be seen as complicit with the most vicious operation on the planet. Instead of protecting life, they are going to be seen as destroying life. The goal here is to show that Putin is not in control of all sectors of the economy.”
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