Watchdog shuts four McDonald's restaurants

Moscow - Russia's consumer watchdog said Wednesday that it ordered four McDonald's restaurants in Moscow to be temporarily closed.

Inspectors found that the US fast-food restaurants had repeatedly violated sanitary rules, the watchdog said in a statement. Among them is the McDonald's on Pushkin Square, which famously drew endless lines of Soviet consumers when it opened in January 1990.

The news raised fears of a fresh round of sanctions against Western businesses. Earlier this month, Moscow banned food imports from a number of countries in retaliation against sanctions imposed on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.

Russia has also in the past cited sanitary violations to justify import bans against countries with which it had political differences.

McDonald's Russia confirmed the closures and said that it was studying the authorities' demands.

"We will do everything possible to continue our company's successful activity in Russia," it said in a statement.