By Snejana Farberov for Mail online and Associated Press Russia's food safety watchdog will conduct checks on McDonald's restaurants in the Urals region in response to complaints, a day after four branches of the chain were shuttered in Moscow. Natalya Lukyantseva, an official in the Sverdlovsk regional office of the agency, told RIA Novosti and Interfax that unplanned checks were being carried out in a number of restaurants after residents voiced safety concerns. The inspections come one day after the agency, known in Russia as Rospotrebnadzor, ordered four Moscow-based restaurants to suspend operations, citing 'numerous' sanitary law violations. Scroll down for video
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Russian food safety inspectors from the agency Rospotrebnadzor temporarily suspended operations in four McDonald's branches Wednesday
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One of the closed eateries was the Pushkin Square location that was the first to open in the Soviet Union in 1990
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The fast-food crackdown comes after sanctions imposed on Russia by US and EU in the aftermath of the crisis in Ukraine
Shuttered: In this photo taken on Wednesday, August 20, 2014, one of closed @placeholder's McDonald's outlets in downtown Moscow w