What just happened? A group of Russian investors has finalized the sale of Yandex’s assets based in Russia, confirming that the company will now completely exit the Russian market. A new venture will focus on AI related businesses, while the old search engine will continue to operate within the Kremlin’s tightly controlled post-Soviet internet.
Major assets belonging to Yandex have been sold to Russian investors in a deal worth $5.4 billion. Yandex’s Dutch parent company (Yandex NV) has now “fully disposed” of its remaining interests in the Russian market, with the assets being transferred to a new company named Nebius Group.
Nebius plans to rebuild itself for the AI market, focusing on four different business areas: cloud computing, data labeling, self-driving cars, and educational technology. Yandex NV, which sold its remaining minority stake (28 percent) for more than $2.8 billion, will stop using the Yandex brand on July 31.
The deal was finalized after two years of negotiations. The Kremlin leadership was heavily involved in the transaction, with Russian officials demanding a significant discount (50 percent) on foreign asset sales. European authorities had imposed restrictions on Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh following Russia’s war against Ukraine, but they lifted the sanctions in March 2024 after Volozh condemned the aggression initiated by Vladimir Putin.
The Russian businessman is now returning as CEO of Nebius, unnamed sources said. Yandex NV’s current chairman, John Boynton, confirmed that all connections with Russia have now been severed. YNV is also looking to bring its stock back to Wall Street, while the “Yandex” Russian brand will now trade in Moscow under the new YDEX title.
Volozh is seemingly interested in expanding Nebius’ hardware prospects, building on the “working relationship” Yandex had with Nvidia for years. “It’s in Nvidia’s interest to diversify their client base; they’re interested in growing companies like us,” the executive stated. The company plans to triple the number of Nvidia GPUs for its data centers, strengthening its AI capabilities to better compete with major Big Tech ventures.
From now on, the Yandex brand will have entirely Russian-based ownership with no direct connections to foreign operations. The company was born out of the dot-com boom in the late 1990s and became known as “Russia’s Google” for its namesake web search engine launched in 1997. Yandex Search will continue to exist after the transaction, and the Kremlin will likely impose even more control on the Russian organization and the entire internet space in the country.
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