REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, MOSCOW -- U.S. drinks firm Coca-Cola on Wednesday (6/1) blamed a marketing agency for a map used in an online advertising campaign that showed Crimea to be part of Russia and which drew protests and threats of a boycott from angry Ukrainians.

Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014, leading to condemnation from Western governments which imposed sanctions on Russia in response. Only a handful of countries have recognised Crimea's incorporation into Russia.

In a statement on Wednesday (6/1), as reported by Reuters, Coca-Cola stated: "We, as a company, don't support any political movements. The company has removed the post and apologises for the situation that occurred."

Coca-Cola said that the map, which appeared on 30th December 2015 on Coca-Cola's page on VKontakte, a Russian social networking site similar to Facebook, had been changed by an advertising agency without Coca-Cola's approval.

Furious Ukrainians took to social media to vent their anger against Coca-Cola, and some threatened to boycott the company's products.

Ukraine's embassy in the United States said in a statement on its Facebook page that it had expressed concerns to the company and to the U.S. State Department.

"The Embassy emphasized that Coca-Cola's actions violate the official U.S. position condemning Russia's illegal occupation of Crimea, which is and has always been an integral part of Ukraine," the statement said.

Coca-Cola is not the only multinational company to have inadvertently faced embarrassment recently because of the festering tensions between Russians and Ukrainians.

Google said on Tuesday (5/1) that problems experienced by some users in translating terms into Russian from Ukrainian using Google Translate were the result of errors in its automated algorithms, Russian agency RBC reported.

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