No happy meals in Moscow as McDonald’s bows to western pressure

Image of the week: Fallen arches

When the Big Macs first arrived in Moscow's Pushkin Square 32 years ago, they were hot and fresh and came with a fast-food smile. The cold war was over, the Soviet Union was dissolving and the US's most famous cheese-slathered burgers had landed in the heart of the city.

Queues formed and McDonald's sold 30,000 meals that first day, before eventually expanding to 847 restaurants in Russia, where it employs 62,000 people. On Tuesday, however, almost two weeks after Putin's invasion of Ukraine, McDonald's bowed to international pressure and said it would shut them down, citing disruptions to its supply chain and a need to monitor "the humanitarian situation", while adding it would continue to pay salaries.

Here, people are seen entering a Moscow McDonald’s while they still can before the Golden Arches go into temporary retreat.

In numbers: Food crisis

30% Share of global wheat exports that come from Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine has now banned a wide range of agricultural exports, including grain, until the end of 2022.

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EU leaders to discuss escape route from Russian fossil fuels

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80% Share of global sunflower oil exports accounted for by Russia and Ukraine. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sent other countries scrambling to secure alternatives, including palm oil – the price of which was already surging this year.

20.7% Year-on-year increase in world food prices, which reached a record high in February, the United Nations food agency said, with recent events prompting governments around the world, including our own, to convene crisis meetings on food security.

Getting to know: Pavel Durov

Russian tech exile Pavel Durov is the chief executive of Telegram, the messaging service he co-founded with elder brother Nikolai in 2013 after a knock on the door from some security agency heavies made a "safe means of communication" something of a priority.

The younger Durov, born in 1984 in what was then known as Leningrad (now St Petersburg), is now a French citizen worth an estimated $15 billion, according to Forbes. The brothers have been in self-imposed exile since 2014, when Pavel exited VKontakte (VK) – the Russian answer to Facebook he created with his brother when he was just 22 – after resisting Kremlin pressure to release the VK data of Ukrainian protest leaders.

He and Telegram eventually settled in Dubai. From there, he stressed this week he would make the same choices "without hesitation" and also highlighted his Ukrainian heritage in a bid to fend off accusations that Telegram was somehow less secure for Ukrainians because he "once lived in Russia".

The list: Energy shocks

Gas prices reached record highs this week, while petrol prices soared and crude oil prices neared all-time levels as western governments escalated their economic sanctions against Russia. It’s all a bit too reminiscent of these energy price shocks from history (well, except the panic-buying one).

1. The 2008 oil peak. Oil prices reached what remains (at the time of writing) their record highs in July 2008, with Brent crude costing $147.50 per barrel that month. The spike occurred amid supply fears that were swiftly sorted out soon by the Great Recession.

2. The 1973 original. Energy crisis veterans are still haunted by the 1973 oil spike that followed an embargo by Arab producers. Inflation soared, the stock market crash and economies took a battering.

3. The 1970s reprise. The decade was rounded out by 1979's "Second Oil Crisis", triggered by the Iranian revolution and subsequent drop in production. Jimmy Carter installed solar panels at the White House, but few were really thinking about energy efficiency.

4. Californian blackouts. Market manipulations by energy companies, including a profiteering Enron, led to massive electricity shortages in the US state in 2000 and 2001. Fraud-riddled Enron subsequently went bankrupt.

5. UK petrol pump panic. In 2012, British motorists panic-bought petrol, leading to chaotic forecourt scenes, after tanker drivers threatened industrial action. Think of this one as a rehearsal for the great pandemic stockpiling frenzies of 2020.