• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 6, 2022

Arkady Volozh, cofounder of Russian search engine and technology giant Yandex, resigned as CEO and executive director of the company after the European Union (EU) sanctioned him.

Neither Yandex nor the Group’s subsidiaries were included on the EU’s sanctions lists for the United States or the United Kingdom.

"We were extremely disappointed to learn that our Founder and CEO, Arkady Volozh, was sanctioned by the EU,” the company’s board of directions stated Monday. “We believe this decision to be wholly unjust and based on an inaccurate understanding of Arkady and what Yandex is all about.”

The board praised Volozh as a “true pioneer” for building technology services such as search, ride hailing, maps and navigation, and autonomous vehicles.

Volozh, they said, created one of the most independent, modern and progressive companies in Russia, and one of the most innovative companies in Europe.

Yandex is described as Russia’s Google. As of May 2022, Yandex held 48.39% search-engine market share in the Russian Federation, compared with Google at 49.11% of search engine marketing share, according to Statcounter.

Yandex led search-engine market share in Russia from January to March 2022, and accounted for nearly 61% of total user visits during that period. The second most-visited search engine in the country was Google, whose share of visits decreased from the previous quarter, according to Statcounter.

The EU imposed sanctions on Volozh on Friday as part of its sixth round of sanctions against Russia, citing the fact that he supported “materially or financially, the Government of the Russian Federation" as CEO of Yandex.

"Yandex is also 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 sanctions list said. 

Volozh called the decision in a statement to impose sanctions against him "misguided and ultimately counterproductive."

Arkady Borkovsky, CTO at Yandex Labs, and Search & Performance Marketing Daily met at a MediaPost OMMA event in San Francisco around 2013. He participated in a panel on global search. That's when it became apparent that the Russian search market would never be the same.