The European Union has removed Arkady Volozh, co-founder of Yandex, from its sanction list as the entrepreneur has been erasing Russia from his official biography and underlining his Kazakhstani roots. The move was widely announced by the media as Volozh’s behavior “has changed.”
However, the EU hasn’t given any official explanation for the move.
Along with Volozh, EU sanctions have been lifted for Josef Hambalek, a Slovakian businessman and Sergei Mndoyants, a former vice president for government relations in the Russian company AFK Sistema. The EU has also removed from its sanction list nine individuals who have passed away, including Russian deputies, high-ranking military officials and Dmitry Utkin, the commander of Wagner, a private military company in Russia.
In February, Reuters reported that EU member states agreed to lift sanctions from Volozh and two other individuals, citing sources familiar with the matter. One of them told the news agency that Volozh’s placement on the sanction list happened despite the lack of “legal reasons” for the move.
Sources told Reuters that legal arguments in court against Volozh were easing given he called Russia’s war in Ukraine «barbaric» after staying silent following the initial invasion on February 24, 2022.
According to Gleb Boyko, a lawyer from NSP, the EU had no legal arguments to extend its sanctions against Volozh, who is no longer a Russian businessman. The same happened to Hambalek, while Mndoyants has managed to prove that he has no links with AFK Sistema anymore, the expert noted.
In August 2023, Volozh removed Russia from his official biography, highlighting that he is a Kazakhstani-born Israeli entrepreneur. Indeed, the businessman was born in Atyrau, studied at the Almaty School of Physics and Mathematics and then left for Moscow where he studied at Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas. In 1997, he presented to the world his internet engine Yandex. Volozh headed the company from 2000 to 2014 when he became CEO of Yandex Group and took a position on the company’s board.
In 2022, the EU imposed sanctions against Yandex as the company promoted Russian state narratives and deleted any criticism against the country’s authorities. Right after that, Volozh quit the company.
