Fed-up Russians are served MOULDY burgers in their replacement McDonald’s restaurants

Russia’s re-branded McDonald’s restaurants have been caught serving mouldy burgers to fed-up customers after the US chain left the country over its invasion of Ukraine.

McDonald’s Corp fully exited Russia earlier this year, selling all the restaurants it owned to a local licensee in May. Under new name Vkusno & Tochka, or ‘Tasty and that’s it,’ 50 restaurants in and around Moscow reopened in June. 

But eaters have complained of mould on the buns of their burgers in several outlets, said Ksenia Sobchak, a popular TV celebrity and the Russian opposition’s most prominent woman politician.

Separately, ‘insect legs’ have also been found in the Russian burgers.

Russia’s re-branded McDonald’s restaurants have been caught serving mouldy burgers to fed-up customers after the US chain left the country over its invasion of Ukraine

Customers have complained of mould on the buns of their burgers in several outlets, said Ksenia Sobchak, a popular TV celebrity and the Russian opposition’s most prominent woman politician.

Customers at the re-branded McDonald’s have been faced with mouldy buns 

McDonald’s Corp fully exited Russia earlier this year, selling all the restaurants it owned to a local licensee in May. Under new name Vkusno & Tochka, or ‘Tasty and that’s it,’ 50 restaurants in and around Moscow reopened on June 12 and June 13

‘Vkusno & Tochka sells mouldy burgers,’ Sobchak posted on her Telegram channel.

Sobchak added: ‘It looks like they don’t quite honour the standards of McDonald’s, at least in terms of product quality control. Today at least three cases were recorded of burgers with mouldy buns sold to customers.

‘Two of them were for my subscribers.’

When it took over the McDonald’s outlets, Vkusno & Tochka promised ‘the same but better’. Yet some customers have their doubts.

One said: ‘I don’t think it’s OK when you find mould.’

Pictures show the sinister mould and Sobchak told the management: ‘Figure it out, guys, you don’t need to poison people.’

Other complaints at the new Russian chain are a lack of meat in cheeseburgers, and cheese sauces with expired use-by dates.

Some eaters posted images of ‘insect legs’ in their food.

Separately, ‘insect legs’ have also been found in the Russian burgers

Pictures show the sinister mould and Sobchak told the management: ‘Figure it out, guys, you don’t need to poison people’

Some eaters posted images of ‘insect legs’ in their food

A man chooses meals at the new Vkusno & Tochka, or ‘Tasty and that’s it’ restaurant (file)

Eaters have also protested that the fries are ‘sad’ compared with the real thing from McDonald’s, which had been in Russian – then the USSR – since 1990.

New packaging has replaced the old, and the Golden Arches have vanished.

The CEO of Vkusno I Tochka, Oleg Paroev, said all 850 former McDonald’s restaurants would be open by September under the new name.  

The first McDonald’s in Russia opened in the middle of Moscow more than three decades ago, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It was a powerful symbol of the easing of Cold War tensions between the United States and Soviet Union.

McDonald’s was the first American fast food restaurant to open in the Soviet Union, which finally collapsed in 1991.

McDonald’s decision to leave comes as other American food and beverage giants including Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Starbucks have paused or closed operations in Russia in the face of western sanctions.