The reason for the closure of the outlets was "numerous violations of the sanitary legislation", according to an official statement by Rospotrebnadzor. However, a significant number of observers in the Russian business community believe the conflict has a political colour.
Russian authorities have closed the restaurant on Pushkin Square – the first McDonald’s restaurant in Russia, which opened almost simultaneously after the fall of the Soviet Union on 31 January 1990. This restaurant was one of the most successful in Europe and the largest in Russia, with an average of 12,000 customers per day. The combined revenue from all four of the closed restaurants is believed to be around US$5m a day.
"At the moment we are studying the essence of claims raised [by Rospotrebnadzor] in order to define the actions that are needed to reopen the restaurant for visitors," said Svetlana Polyakova, director of public relations for McDonald’s Russia.
Inspection of McDonald’s restaurants has been initiated in almost all regions of the country. There are reports coming in that these are taking place in Moscow Oblast, the Republic of Tatarstan, the Republic of Karelia, Tambov Oblast, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Chelyabinsk Oblast and Perm Oblast.
The decision to close restaurants and launch these inspections has come as a surprise both for McDonald’s and the Russian business community as, previously, Rospotrebnadzor’s officials said there were no plans to stop the operation of any restaurants; the plan was only to remove several burgers from the menu.
Igor Bukharov, president of the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers of Russia, which includes the McDonald’s network, said: "It is unlikely that Rospotrebnadzor has found serious violations of the veterinary legislation in the Moscow restaurants, and the colour of the whole story itself is painfully obvious."
During 2013, according to Rospotrebnadzor’s department in Moscow, out of 49,000 complaints on food restaurants, McDonald’s had only a small share of 1.6% – and those were mainly complaints about smell and noise.
"I have not heard that there were a lot of complaints about the quality of food in McDonald’s and, in general, the quality of food at fast food restaurants," added Bukharov.
Russian government officials persistently deny their involvement in the conflict. On 21 August, deputy prime minister for social affairs Olga Golodets denied that the initiative to attack McDonald’s was coming from the government. She stated that there was no "total plan" for the inspection of McDonald’s network of restaurants in Russia and claimed the activities were being carried out "in accordance with the general plan, and based on some cases of violations of sanitary-epidemiological legislation".
According to some Russian experts, the future of McDonald’s in Russia will become clear in the coming weeks; if other restaurant closures are announced, it may be evidence that the Russian authorities have made the final decision to push out the fast food chain from the market completely.