‘Chicken Kiev’ to be renamed

UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s is renaming its ‘Chicken Kiev’ products ‘Chicken Kyiv,’ to reflect Ukrainian spelling, and is also removing ‘Russian Standard’ vodka and Russian sunflower seeds from its shelves.

In a statement to UK media, Britain’s second largest supermarket chain said that it stands “united with the people of Ukraine” and would donate £2 million ($2.64mn) to help those affected by the humanitarian crisis there. Sainsbury’s didn’t limit its support to donations, however, and also conducted a review of its product range.

“We have decided to remove from sale all products that are 100% sourced from Russia. This means that from [Friday] we will no longer sell two products – Russian Standard vodka and Karpayskiye black sunflower seeds,” the retail giant announced.

“We are also re-naming ‘Chicken Kiev’ to ‘Chicken Kyiv’ and the new packaging will be available in the coming weeks,” a spokesperson said, referring to the different ways of spelling the Ukrainian capital’s name: in Russian, ‘Kiev’ and, in Ukrainian, ‘Kyiv.’

Russia’s military attack on Ukraine prompted many Western countries to introduce harsh sanctions against Moscow and a growing list of companies have ceased their Russian operations. Another popular supermarket chain, Waitrose, told Metro.co.uk that it would not be renaming Chicken Kiev, which it also sells.

Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24. Ordering the attack, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin cited an urgent need to “denazify” and to “demilitarize” Ukraine. The West has responded by imposing a raft of major sanctions which targeted key sectors of the Russian economy.

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