OTTAWA, March 28. /TASS/. Several Canadian grocery chains made a decision to pull products with the "Made in Russia" label from shelves, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Sunday.

The owners of some chain stores belonging to Empire Company, Metro, Loblaw Companies removed the products made in Russia or directly associated with it, including sunflower seeds, malt beer and certain sweets. The companies are also working on finding alternative sourcing for these products.

In the days following the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, many stores in Canada, including online retailers, began removing Russian-made products, mostly vodka. According to the newspaper, this also involved the "Russian" vodka produced outside of Russia.

Meanwhile, Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, told the newspaper that the task of detecting Russian products is more complicated than simply scanning the labels. According to him, Canada imports some commodities from Russia, depending on demand, including wheat, corn, barley and lentils. "What constitutes a Russian product? Are we thinking about ingredients or brands?" he said, adding "I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the bread we buy in Canada contains Russian wheat."

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories. Following this, the US, the EU, the UK and a number of other countries announced the introduction of sanctions against Russian legal entities and private individuals.