Starbucks is leaving Russia after 15 years, becoming the latest Western corporation to leave the country following the conflict in Ukraine.
After suspending operations in Russia in March, the coffee chain will now exit the country entirely.
Starbucks first entered Russia in 2007 and has since expanded to 130 licenced coffee shops.
It joins companies like McDonald’s and Renault in permanently leaving the country.
The United States and its Western allies responded to the war by slamming Russia with broad economic sanctions aimed at economically isolating it and cutting it off from the global financial system. Western companies find it difficult to operate there due to the rules.
Starbucks had stopped shipments to Russia in March. It said it had now “made the decision to exit and no longer have a brand presence in the market”.
It did not give details of the financial impact of the decision, but said it would continue to pay nearly 2,000 staff at Starbucks shops in the country for six months and provide assistance “to transition to new opportunities outside of Starbucks”.
The Starbucks stores are owned and operated by the Kuwait-based Alshaya Group, which said the decision to leave was a “Starbucks announcement” and referred questions to the coffee chain. It did not specify whether it planned to sell its stores or reopen under a new name.
McDonald’s announced last week that it was selling nearly 850 restaurants in Russia to a current licensee, Russian businessman Alexander Govor, who will rebrand the restaurants.
Earlier this month, French automaker Renault announced that its operations had been nationalised and would be run by Russian government entities, with the hope of restarting production under a Soviet-era car brand.
