NOVOSIBIRSK, August 21. /ITAR-TASS/. The US fast food chain McDonald's will not abandon plans to open outlets in Russia’s Siberia, the company said on Thursday, a day after several branches in Moscow were shuttered by the Russian consumer watchdog.

McDonald's plans to open by the end of the year three new restaurants in the country's third-largest city Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia, and four restaurants in the Siberian city of Omsk. Another six McDonald’s restaurants are to open in Omsk in the years to come.

The newest restaurant of the chain, opened some time ago in Novosibirsk is already operating, the company’s official said.

Lenar Kutlin, McDonald's national development director for Russia, confirmed plans to continue expanding to Siberia in 2015, though giving no further details.

On Wednesday, Russian consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor filed administrative lawsuits against four McDonald’s restaurants in Moscow. Snap inspections from August 18-20 revealed many violations of sanitary regulations, the agency said, adding that legal proceedings had begun ahead of court hearings.

Among a Russia-wide network of some 430 outlets, inspections would branch out to other locations, a Rospotrebnadzor statement added.

The McDonald’s Corporation, founded in 1940, is the world’s largest fast-food chain. It has more than 35,000 outlets in 119 countries. The first McDonald's location opened in 1940 in San Bernardino, California.

Russia's first McDonald's opened on Moscow's Pushkin Square in 1990, when it was viewed as a sign that Cold War tensions with the United States were starting to thaw.

McDonald's operates 438 restaurants in Russia and sees the country as one of its top seven major markets outside the United States and Canada, according to its 2013 annual report.