Russia’s largest internet company is to sell off its news and blogging services to the state-controlled social media platform VK in a deal that will increase direct state control over the news many Russians see online.
The deal for the Yandex news aggregator and Zen blogging platform, as well the sale of the main page, yandex.ru, will probably result in it being transformed into a social-media-style news feed curated by the Gazprom-owned VK, whose chief executive is the son of a Kremlin official tasked with integrating the occupied territories of Ukraine.
News items on Yandex were already seen as carefully curated to avoid controversial topics in Russia, including items that criticised the war in Ukraine. The sale of the company’s media holdings is thought to be an attempt to help insulate Yandex from the threat of western sanctions by limiting its exposure to politics.
“The board and management of Yandex have concluded that the interests of the company’s stakeholders … are best served by pursuing the strategic exit from its media businesses,” the company said in a statement on Monday announcing the binding agreement. The deal had previously been announced in April, but without the news that Yandex’s main page would also be sold to VK.
Yandex’s founder, Arkady Volozh, was placed under sanctions by the EU in June for his involvement in the company. In its statement, the EU wrote that the company was “responsible for promoting state media and narratives in its search results, and deranking and removing content critical of the Kremlin, such as content related to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”.
The Yandex board wrote at the time that it believed “this decision to be wholly unjust and based on an inaccurate understanding of Arkady and what Yandex is all about”.
Yandex’s government ties and its continued interests in the news segment had caused considerable turmoil inside the company. The former deputy chief executive Tigran Khudaverdyan had earlier stood down after being placed under sanctions by the EU, while several board members left after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Yandex, which is often referred to as Russia’s Google and has launched a number of successful internet services, will keep its search engine on the less-used ya.ru domain and, as part of the deal, will acquire 100% of the VK-owned food delivery service, Delivery Club.
The deal must still be approved by Russia’s anti-monopoly watchdog, Yandex said. VK said it had left a joint venture with the Russian state lender Sberbank in order to pursue the deal with Yandex.
