Kiev opened a criminal case because of the Coca-Cola card with the Russian Crimea

In Ukraine, a criminal case was opened against Coca-Cola and PEPSICO because of the cards with the Russian Crimea Photo: Depositphotos

The prosecutor's office of the autonomous republic of Crimea, located in Ukraine, opened a criminal case against the American companies Coca-Cola and PEPSI in connection with the publication of maps on which Crimea is included in the Russian Federation.

About it in your Facebook said Verkhovna Rada deputy from the Popular Front Georgy Logvinsky. On social networks, he published a photo of documents indicating that the companies were suspected of committing the crime of “Abuse of power or official position.”

In addition, the prosecutor's office will check for the following crimes: “Encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine” and “Illegal use of a mark for goods and services, a company name, a qualified indication of the origin of a product.”

It is stated that the companies “publicly acknowledged the illegal annexation.”

As previously wrote ForumDaily, scandal with the publication of maps, in which the Crimean peninsula was designated as part of Russia, flared up on the eve of the New Year in the Coca-Cola public on the VKontakte social network. Initially, the banner depicted a map of Russia without Crimea, as well as without the Kuril Islands and the Kaliningrad region, which caused dissatisfaction among Russian users. The company later apologized for the incident and corrected the map. The edited version, in which Crimea became part of Russia, in turn, caused outrage among Ukrainian users.

Verkhovna Rada deputy, journalist Mustafa Nayem urged Ukrainians to abandon the company's products and put the #BanCocaCola hashtag among the leaders of the Ukrainian segment of Twitter. Soon a similar map was found on the PEPSI website.