The US fast-food giant has provoked Kiev’s ire for continuing operations in Russia

The US-based multinational fast-food franchise Subway has been added to Kiev’s list of “international sponsors of war” for continuing to operate and pay taxes in Russia, Ukraine’s National Corruption Prevention Agency (NCPA) announced on Wednesday.   

The Ukrainian agency justified the move by noting that Subway’s Russia division, which is the company’s third largest in Europe after the UK and Germany, continues to operate in the country, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes to the Russian budget.  

“Subway also actively advertises its activities through sanctioned Russian social networks and delivers food through Yandex services, which cooperate with the state and law enforcement agencies of the aggressor country,” the statement said.  

The US company has been operating in Russia for over 20 years, having created about 6,000 jobs and running 550 restaurants in 122 cities.   

Since the start of the Ukraine conflict, the company has not reported any reduction in its operations in Russia, the NCPA said, blaming Subway for providing jobs to Russians and supporting the Russian economy.  

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“Subway has said that all restaurants in the country are independently owned and operated by local and master franchisees, so the restaurants remain open in Russia. This statement regarding the inability to influence its own franchisees is untrue and actually misleading,” NCPA declared.  

According to the Ukrainian agency, in May 2022 after the fast-food chain faced problems with the transfer of payments from Russia to its American franchisor, Subway found legal mechanisms that allowed banks to resume processing payments, and the company began to receive revenue from Russian franchisees again.  

Subway has been branded an enemy of Ukraine along with Raiffeisen Bank International, Auchan, Metro, Procter & Gamble, Bonduelle, Leroy Merlin, Xiaomi, and numerous other international companies.

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