Companies such as Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Coca-Cola have ceased operations in Russia due to the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine. Despite the situation in Ukraine, the sandwich chain Subway will not be closing its restaurants in Russia. 

“It’s horrifically unfortunate that Ukraine is experiencing an invasion from their geographical neighbors in this decade. With every day that goes by, innocent lives are taken by Russian military and communities are stripped apart. It makes sense that international companies that have done business on Russian soil are halting their operations regionally or completely pulling out of the country to weaken the Russian economy. Many Americans have already begun to boycott ‘Russia-origin’ companies. Are companies like Subway excluded from these practices? I have to admit that when we realize we have a Subway on our campus, the question also arises on how do we become better allies with our friends over in Ukraine?” stated Armon Alex, a junior science communication and public relations student at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

Subway released a statement in March 2022 explaining the company’s decision to continue business as usual in Russia and expressing the company’s support for Ukrainian refugees. “Our thoughts are with the people of Ukraine, and we are committed to supporting those impacted by the tragic events in the region. Subway has no corporate operations in Russia. There are approximately 450 franchised restaurants in Russia, which are all independently owned and operated by local franchisees and managed by an independent master franchisee. We don’t directly control these independent franchisees and their restaurants, and have limited insight into their day-to-day operations.”

Subway claims that because it is a franchise, the chain does not have control over the business locations in Russia. One may wonder how fast food chains such as McDonald’s have completely halted all operations in Russia despite being a chain as well. However, all 850 of McDonald’s Russian locations are corporate-owned rather than franchised, ultimately allowing the company to temporarily close all Russian locations. 

 After speaking with student workers from Subway on the TAMU-CC campus, many agree that as long as the situation in Ukraine has no impact on their paycheck from Subway, they don’t have a problem with the chain continuing business operations in Russia as usual.

However, some Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi students expressed an opposing viewpoint. “I, for one, don’t eat at Subway on a regular basis, but I will say that knowing what tragedies are occurring over in Ukraine, I can’t bring myself to support organizations that either directly or indirectly feed into the invasion. So on that basis, I don’t see myself dining there,” Alex said. 

To read Subway’s recent press release, visit: https://www.subway.com/PressReleases/SupportofUkrainianRefugees.pdf