Coca-Cola made Russia very angry and started a boycott in Ukraine with this map

Coca-Cola has managed to escalate tensions in Eastern Europe by not including and then subsequently including Crimea on a map of Russia in a New Year’s marketing message.

Russian annexed the peninsula, which is claimed by Ukraine, in early 2014 and the territory is currently disputed by the two countries.

The company initially posted a new year’s message on the social network VKontakte, which featured a map of Russia, but did not include Crimea in the map.

Having received criticism from Russian users of the social network, the company republished the map including Crimea, as well as the Kuril Islands and Kaliningrad, with an apology.

This led to calls for a boycott of the company’s drinks in Ukraine from public and officials alike, while the company has since deleted all versions of the map on the social network.

The hashtag #BanCocaCola trended in Ukraine on 5 January, while the embassy of Ukraine in the US said in a statement that it had "expressed concerns to the Coca-Cola company and the US Department of State" about the map.

It's not the first time Coca-Cola has done this - at the end of 2014, the company had also included Crimea in a map of Russia at the "World of Coca-Cola" museum in Moscow.

A spokesperson for Coca-Cola told i100.co.uk:

The Coca-Cola Russia team had a stylized map of Russia created as part of its Christmas campaign. The agency that created the map later made changes without our knowledge or approval. We, as a company, do not take political positions unrelated to our business, and we apologize for the post, which we have removed.

HT Guardian