Volozh’s decision to openly condemn the war against Ukraine comes amid complex wrangling with the Kremlin over restructuring of Yandex, known to many as Russia’s Google. Some fear the negotiations could result in a partial nationalization of the company.
The denunciation of the war, in which tens of thousands have died and cities have been leveled, sets Volozh apart from the rest of Russia’s billionaires. Many are privately critical but have made only guarded statements or decline to comment on the conflict, fearful of retribution by Putin and his regime, especially when they have billions of dollars in assets in Russia at stake.
Volozh, 59, left Russia for Israel in 2014, but continued to run Yandex as its chief executive officer and serve on the company’s board until he resigned from both positions last year after the European Union imposed sanctions on him for “materially or financially supporting the invasion.”
He continues to own an 8.5 percent stake in Yandex, which had traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange until being suspended as a result of the war.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threw the company into turmoil, tarnishing its previous image as a beacon for a new, more progressive, globally integrated Russia. Volozh said Thursday that it was clear that vision was over.
Thousands of Yandex employees have fled Russia since the start of the war and the company’s news aggregation business was accused by the E.U. of “promoting state media and narratives in its search results” and “removing content related to Russia’s war of aggression.” Yandex sold its news aggregation business soon after the sanctions were imposed.
“When we built Yandex, we were thinking not only of technology and business,” Volozh said. “We believed that we were building a new Russia — an open, progressive country integrated in the global economy.”
He added: “We weren’t the only ones who believed in building a new Russia. But with time it has become clear that Russia is not rushing to become part of the global world, and at the same time the pressure on the company has grown. … Were we always able to find the right balance? Now looking back, it is clear that some things could have been done differently.”
Previously, the only major Russian businessman to publicly denounce the war was Oleg Tinkov, an exiled former owner of one of Russia’s biggest private banks, who had already handed over a large part of his financial business to the Russian state. After he condemned Russia’s “crazy war” in Ukraine and renounced his Russian citizenship last year in protest, he said he was forced to sell his remaining minority stake to the Russian government for “kopecks.”
Tinkov’s public antiwar stance, however, appeared to help win him a reprieve from the British government, which last month said it was lifting sanctions on the tycoon after considering “all the factors in this case, including the actions Mr. Tinkov has taken following his sanctions designation.”
Following the decision, Tinkov said he hoped his example would encourage others and he told Russian independent news channel TV Rain that he “felt sorry” for other Russian billionaires who he said feared to speak out against the war because “they are cowards.”
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the exiled Russian tycoon and outspoken critic of the Putin regime, had supported Tinkov in his bid to win a reprieve from sanctions citing his open condemnation of the war. He said on Thursday he hoped Tinkov’s case helped determine Volozh’s stance.
But other Moscow business executives pointed to the growing appetite among state officials’ to seize assets and the increasing clouds over the future of Yandex as other potential motivating factors — especially as complex negotiations with the Kremlin over the restructuring of the company have bogged down.
