Strained relations between the West and Russia have even hit the world of online travel, with accusations that TripAdvisor is misrepresenting the status of Crimea.
The row has nothing to do with the respective military and diplomatic crises in Syria, but centres on how the user review giant portrays the Crimean enclave on its maps.
Russian MP Oleg Mikheyev has asked officials in the Russian government to investigate TripAdvisor after it emerged the maps its uses on the site are showing Crimea as a disputed territory.
A referendum in March 2014 saw residents support the annexation of the Crimean peninsula by Russia, shifting it out of control of the Ukraine.
Mikheyev says:
"Despite that the Republic of Crimea rejoined Russia two years ago, this organization depicts Crimea as one of Ukraine’s subjects, not Russia’s."
The MP wants prosecutors to designate TripAdvisor has an "undesirable" company in Russia, effectively seeing it banned from operating there and having its assets frozen.
Whilst TripAdvisor will no doubt say that it gets it maps, as countless others do, via an integration with Google Maps, what has angered the MP is that TripAdvisor has not used what it would deem to be the correct feed when showing the map to users of the Russian version of the site.
A TripAdvisor official says:
"As the world’s largest travel website, our geo-classifications take into account guidance from the international community. In the case of Crimea we follow the geo-classification currently agreed by the United Nations.
"Additionally, the maps displayed on TripAdvisor’s websites and native apps are provided by Google Maps."
Google is well known for using a dotted line on its maps to represent borders when there is some controversy around specific a territory.
In the case of the Crimea, a vast majority of its global map products use the dotted line to signal the disputed border between the Ukraine and the peninsula:
Most TripAdvisor sites do the same:
But Google does take note of such apparent cultural sensitivities for its Russian version, inserting the full line for the controversial border:
Yet TripAdvisor's Russian website shows the original Google dotted-line feed, thus causing the anger:
TripAdvisor opened its Russian website in November 2010, bringing its global reach to 25 at the time.
It now has around 65 country websites around the world.
NB: Crimea image via Shutterstock.