“In the weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, a record 14 million people a day headed to Yandex News. But instead of reading about civilian deaths and destruction, they were told that Russian liberators were “denazifying” Ukraine.”
About 100,000 IT specialists left Russia in 2022 by the government’s own count. Yandex is splitting in two, with the Russian half going to a partnership that includes a Putin-aligned economist. The Kremlin promises $41.2 billion for electronics while admitting its chip industry is 10 to 15 years behind. You cannot rebuild an industry when the people who built it already left.