McDonald’s shuts down Russian restaurants

McDonald’s Corp said on Tuesday it would temporarily close its restaurants in Russia, becoming the latest Western company to pause all operations in the country after it moved troops into Ukraine.

The fast-food chain said it would go on paying salaries to its 62,000 employees in Russia.

Earlier on Tuesday, Shell stopped buying oil from Russia and said it would cut links to the country entirely while the United States stepped up its campaign to punish Moscow by banning Russian oil and energy imports.

The West’s moves to isolate Russia economically for attacking its neighbour have turbocharged global commodity and energy markets, sending prices soaring and threatening to derail the nascent recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Britain too said it would ban imports of Russian oil but only by gradually phasing them out during 2022 to give businesses time to find alternative sources of supply.

The surge in metal prices since Russia attacked Ukraine is starting to hurt some players caught on the wrong side of the market, as well as end consumers such as carmakers.

The London Metal Exchange (LME) halted trade in nickel on Tuesday after prices of the metal, a key component in electric vehicle batteries, doubled to more than $100,000 a tonne.

Shell’s decision to abandon Russia comes days after it faced a hail of criticism for buying Russian oil ΓÇô a transaction that two weeks ago would have been routine – underlining how Moscow’s pariah status is growing even in a market it used to dominate.

“We are acutely aware that our decision last week to purchase a cargo of Russian crude oil to be refined into products like petrol and diesel – despite being made with security of supplies at the forefront of our thinking – was not the right one, and we are sorry,” Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said.

Although no sanctions have yet forced such divestments, Shell and rivals BP and Exxon Mobil have all announced plans to sell holdings in Russia and exit the country, leaving France’s TotalEnergies relatively isolated in hanging onto its investments there.