Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses • Hacker News Board

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#111

Post by nradov » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:45 PM UTC

thriftwy wrote: post #109

kiba wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War didn't technically "end" between North and South Korea, North Korea is still a pariah state even if we were to accept the Korean war ended many decades ago. Relationship between Russia and the west will probably be restored at some point but not without a lot of Russians and to a lesser extent Ukrainian getting killed, their economy and infrastructure gutted.

Well, at the current point of time Russia's economy and infrastructure are mostly intact. I'm not sure why is that for a dramatic change. If you look at Iran, it also has its infrastructure in quite OK conditions - perhaps in better shape than all of their neighbours, and now that may even include Turkey. Russia is larger and has not self-inflicted being a theocracy. As for the losses of both sides, I'd suggest leavi…

As the war drags on we can expect to see escalation in Ukrainian strikes against Russian infrastructure targets such as refineries. Russia is already short of air defense systems and isn't able to provide much coverage for civilian targets. Whether this works will depend on the level of sustained foreign aid for Ukraine.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/01/25/ukrain...

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#112

Post by rurp » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:49 PM UTC

khzw8yyy wrote: post #104

throwaway_20357 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is little hope of normalizing relations with Russia, so unfortunately these "Western assets" need to be written off anyway. A large part of them ($98bn) came from Cyprus which might just be round-tripping Russian money.

All wars have something in common: they end. That thought in your head about lack of hope of normalizing relations is just the current propaganda working. Edit: it's amazing just how short-sighted people can be. Look, we still bring up the Nazis as an unassailable argument for how something is bad. And yet the war with Germany ended and they are now a US ally fighting Russia. I'm sure in the midst of WW2 the common f…

So do countries, if we're looking at a long enough time scale. There is no end in sight for the war in Ukraine and when the end comes it's likely to be messy. It might be more of a pause than a true end, and one or both sides will likely be pretty unhappy with the outcome. It could be many years before Russia and the west go back to a comfortable economic relationship.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#113

Post by Aissen » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:50 PM UTC

thrdbndndn wrote: post #30

Dang: please edit the link to the actual press, https://ir.yandex/press-releases?year=2024&id=05-02-2024 , not the index page for the year 2024.

This does nothing, if you want dang to help, use the email address in the bottom Contact footer.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#114

Post by krunck » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:51 PM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #110

alephnerd wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yandex is keeping their Russian business. This is Yandex's European arm divesting itself from the Search+Mail business they have in Russia. In the press release, this was even mentioned - that Yandex's Russian management (aka most of it's management) would be buying out their Russian operations.

Slight edit to this. I didn't realize the core founding team was pushed out and largely committed Aliyah for Israel after the 2022 War began. Not surprised either, as the core team was fairly progressive and anti-war, as a lot of Russian techies are. Also, it was the core team that was working on forward facing bets - sort of like a more functional version of Larry Page and Sergey Brin - and they're keeping those for…

By "anti-war" do you mean in general or in regard to a particular war?

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#115

Post by vzaliva » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

"The consideration will be paid in a combination of: (i) a cash equivalent of at least RUB 230 billion"

This money will go to Russian economy and will indirectly support the war. Instead these money should have been frozen in an escrow account and potentially used to rebuild Ukrainian economy.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#116

Post by WinstonSmith84 » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

khzw8yyy wrote: post #104

throwaway_20357 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is little hope of normalizing relations with Russia, so unfortunately these "Western assets" need to be written off anyway. A large part of them ($98bn) came from Cyprus which might just be round-tripping Russian money.

All wars have something in common: they end. That thought in your head about lack of hope of normalizing relations is just the current propaganda working. Edit: it's amazing just how short-sighted people can be. Look, we still bring up the Nazis as an unassailable argument for how something is bad. And yet the war with Germany ended and they are now a US ally fighting Russia. I'm sure in the midst of WW2 the common f…

Everything has something in common: it ends. Whether it's Peace, Countries, Humans, Planets or, yes ... Wars. It's just a question of timescale.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#117

Post by ecommerceguy » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 4:04 PM UTC

rurp wrote: post #112

khzw8yyy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All wars have something in common: they end. That thought in your head about lack of hope of normalizing relations is just the current propaganda working. Edit: it's amazing just how short-sighted people can be. Look, we still bring up the Nazis as an unassailable argument for how something is bad. And yet the war with Germany ended and they are now a US ally fighting Russia. I'm sure in the midst of WW2 the common f…

So do countries, if we're looking at a long enough time scale. There is no end in sight for the war in Ukraine and when the end comes it's likely to be messy. It might be more of a pause than a true end, and one or both sides will likely be pretty unhappy with the outcome. It could be many years before Russia and the west go back to a comfortable economic relationship.

[flagged]

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#118

Post by kergonath » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 4:04 PM UTC

khzw8yyy wrote: post #104

throwaway_20357 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is little hope of normalizing relations with Russia, so unfortunately these "Western assets" need to be written off anyway. A large part of them ($98bn) came from Cyprus which might just be round-tripping Russian money.

All wars have something in common: they end. That thought in your head about lack of hope of normalizing relations is just the current propaganda working. Edit: it's amazing just how short-sighted people can be. Look, we still bring up the Nazis as an unassailable argument for how something is bad. And yet the war with Germany ended and they are now a US ally fighting Russia. I'm sure in the midst of WW2 the common f…

Ending wars and normalising relations can take a hell of a lot of time, though. Just ask people who lived in the Balkans, central or Eastern Europe, Korea, or in Palestine at some point in the 20th century, to name but a few examples. Or those who lived in a constant background of warfare basically anywhere in the world at any point in time. The pax romana and the stability brought by well-managed empires are remarquable for a reason.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#119

Post by reisse » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 4:05 PM UTC

krunck wrote: post #114

alephnerd wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slight edit to this. I didn't realize the core founding team was pushed out and largely committed Aliyah for Israel after the 2022 War began. Not surprised either, as the core team was fairly progressive and anti-war, as a lot of Russian techies are. Also, it was the core team that was working on forward facing bets - sort of like a more functional version of Larry Page and Sergey Brin - and they're keeping those for…

By "anti-war" do you mean in general or in regard to a particular war?

Ex-CEO of Russian Yandex made a post in an internal network explaining she moved to Israel, and, among other things, saying "I don't want to live in a country waging wars with its neighbours (sic)". I wonder if she understood her own hypocrisy.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#120

Post by ecommerceguy » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 4:07 PM UTC

sorenjan wrote: post #75

roenxi wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there is little hope of normalizing relations with Russia After 9/11, the US maintained productive relations with the Saudis. They're actively supporting Israel through the Gaza business. They have a long history of propping up dictators and thrashing countries for hard-to-articulate reasons (I still don't get exactly what the point of Afghanistan or Iraq was, even accepting the blunt "oil" that is sometime…

The US sought a quick peace in Ukraine, they even asked Russia to not invade even before Russia started their invasion. You can't get much quicker than before the events have taken place. It didn't work because Russia isn't interested in peace, but that's not the US' fault.

Is there a source to this statement?