Yandex wants to depoliticize itself by divesting its media business
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2025 8:26 am
The Kremlin's grip on the Internet was already absolutely tight , and now it is getting even tighter. Yandex , which owns the largest search engine in Russia and also a mobility service very similar to Uber, has sold its media business to VK, a company very close to Vladimir Putin's government.
Yandex has decided to divest its news aggregator, its Zen content platform and the yandex.ru homepage, placing these properties in the hands of VK and focusing on other business areas such as delivery and transportation. In return, Yandex will buy VK's Delivery Club delivery company.
VK is the parent company of what claims to be Russia's largest social network, VKontakte , and is largely controlled by the Russian state-owned company Gazprom and the banker Yuri Kovalchuk, whom Vladimir jordan number data Putin has publicly described as a very close friend.
In addition, Vladimir Kiriyenko , son of Sergei Kiriyenko, deputy head of Putin's presidential office, is at the helm of VK as CEO.
Moscow's years-long crackdown on independent media intensified after Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24. The Kremlin passed a law shortly after the invasion to root out "false information" about the Russian military and restrict press freedom.
Moscow also blocked access to foreign platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
Like many other Russian companies, Yandex has been through a turbulent period in recent months. Its revenues suffered a sharp decline in the first quarter of 2022 (although they recovered in the following quarter).
In recent years, Yandex has been doing its bidding (under threat of severe sanctions) with regard to the information that makes its way through its news aggregator. And since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the company has been systematically accused of deliberately suppressing information about the conflict. Yandex, however, denies that it is complicit in censorship.
Yandex has decided to divest its news aggregator, its Zen content platform and the yandex.ru homepage, placing these properties in the hands of VK and focusing on other business areas such as delivery and transportation. In return, Yandex will buy VK's Delivery Club delivery company.
VK is the parent company of what claims to be Russia's largest social network, VKontakte , and is largely controlled by the Russian state-owned company Gazprom and the banker Yuri Kovalchuk, whom Vladimir jordan number data Putin has publicly described as a very close friend.
In addition, Vladimir Kiriyenko , son of Sergei Kiriyenko, deputy head of Putin's presidential office, is at the helm of VK as CEO.
Moscow's years-long crackdown on independent media intensified after Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24. The Kremlin passed a law shortly after the invasion to root out "false information" about the Russian military and restrict press freedom.
Moscow also blocked access to foreign platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
Like many other Russian companies, Yandex has been through a turbulent period in recent months. Its revenues suffered a sharp decline in the first quarter of 2022 (although they recovered in the following quarter).
In recent years, Yandex has been doing its bidding (under threat of severe sanctions) with regard to the information that makes its way through its news aggregator. And since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the company has been systematically accused of deliberately suppressing information about the conflict. Yandex, however, denies that it is complicit in censorship.