THE RUSSIAN government closed down four McDonalds outlets in Moscow yesterday, following a round of sanctions against western agricultural products.The government said that the closures, which included the first McDonalds ever opened in the country, were due to unsanitary conditions discovered by the Russian public health authority.The Russian arm of McDonalds said in a statement that it would study the claims and attempt to quickly reopen the stores.The restaurant in Moscow’s Pushkin square is reportedly the busiest in the world, and was the source of iconic post-Soviet photographs in 1993 when it opened. Tens of thousands of customers queued for miles to eat at the store on its first day.The measure comes quickly after recent rounds of sanctions against and from Russia, following the annexation of Crimea and the attack which brought down flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine.Earlier this week, the Polish government requested that the European Commission to issue a complaint about the Russian gov­ern­ment to the World Trade Organ­isation on its behalf.Polish farmers are some of the single market’s hardest-hit by the agricultural sanctions levied by President Vladimir Putin. The Russian government has banned the import of dairy, meat, fish and vegetable products from the EU, US and other nations, in a tit-for-tat response to previous sanctions.Polish agriculture minister Marek Sawicki said that he had spoken to Karel de Gucht, the EU’s trade commissioner. Sawicki also requested that the EU hold an emergency meeting of the bloc’s agriculture ministers to discuss the Russian embargo.