McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Starbucks on Tuesday bowed to public pressure and suspended their operations in Russia, joining the international corporate chorus of outrage over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Several of these companies, symbols of American cultural influence in the world, have been the subject of boycott calls on social media as investors have also begun to ask questions about their presence.
Starbucks, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo announced their own decisions to halt or restrict business in quick succession, noting the growing human cost of the invasion.
“By continuing to operate, we will also continue to support the livelihoods of our 20,000 Russian associates and the 40,000 Russian agricultural workers in our supply chain,” PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta said in a statement.
A team from Yale University that keeps a list of companies with a significant presence in Russia said about 290 have announced withdrawal from the country since it invaded neighboring Ukraine, reminiscent of “the large-scale corporate boycott of Apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.”
 Legitimate reasons?Â
Yum! Brands, whose 1,000 or so KFC restaurants and 50 Pizza Hut locations in Russia are almost all independently owned, announced Tuesday that it was halting operations at company-owned KFC locations.
Some businesses may have legitimate reasons to stay, several experts in ethics and communications strategy told AFP.
But he said they have to pick a side “and it doesn’t strike me as this being very difficult to pick” given Russia’s human rights and conflict law violations.
 ‘What’s going on?’Â
Russians can “survive without the Big Mac,” but they may ask “why is McDonald’s closed? What’s going on? It’s a more powerful signal in that sense,” Fort said.
The economic sanctions imposed on Russia with broad consensus among Western governments along with the voluntary withdrawal of multinationals “is really the best way to deal with Russia,” said Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer.
Other crisis situations, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, led to calls for boycotts against certain companies but without much effect.
Mark Hass, a communications specialist at Arizona State University, said the economic interest of companies that have chosen to stay in Russia “outweighs the reputational one.”
“And it will hurt business more broadly than just in Russia.”