Coca-Cola apologized to the Russians and Ukrainians for the Crimea

The card that caused the scandal. Photo: Vkontakte Coca-Cola

The American company Coca-Cola on its official page on the social network VKontakte apologized for publishing a map of Russia that does not include Crimea, the Kaliningrad region and the Kuril Islands.

The “wrong” map was published on the community page on the evening of December 30th. After Russian users began to massively express their dissatisfaction with it, the company published a new map on the night of January 5, on which Crimea was designated as Russian territory, and apologized.

“Dear community members! We sincerely apologize for this situation. The map has been corrected! We hope for your understanding,” the message said.

After journalists noticed the situation, all posts and comments on this topic were removed from the community page. While they are available in the cache of google here and here.

However, soon the Ukrainian representative office of the Coca-Cola company apologized for a “misunderstanding” due to the publication of a map of Russia, on which Crimea was indicated as the territory of this country.

This is stated in the official commentary of the company sent to Ukrayinska Pravda.

"Sorry for misunderstanding. We do not support any political movements or parties. Our goal is to produce high-quality drinks. We work for peace and adhere to international law,” the statement said.

“We contacted an agency that carried out work on creating content, posting it and moderating it in official social communities. It was decided to delete this post, although, as intended, the picture did not claim to be geographically accurate, it was perceived differently and caused a discussion,” the company added, writes “Ukrainian Truth«.

In Ukraine, deputies and activists responded immediately.

Thus, People's Deputy from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction Mustafa Nayem suggests that Ukrainian citizens refuse to purchase Coca-Cola products.

This proposal has already been supported by a number of Ukrainian public activists and organizations, politicians, as well as diplomats, including Ukrainian ambassadors to a number of countries around the world, writes “Today«.

In Facebook, Ukrainians began to actively use the hashtag #bancocacola, thereby showing their desire to boycott the drink.

As Forum wrote earlier, USA and several other countries have imposed sanctions against Russia because of the annexation of the Crimea.