The parent firm of Russia's most prominent technology company, Yandex wants to cut ties with the country to protect its new businesses from the fallout of the war in Ukraine, a potential setback to President Vladimir V. Putin's efforts to develop homegrown substitutes for high-tech Western goods and services that have been choked off by sanctions.
The Dutch holding company of Yandex, often known as Russia's Google, would transfer its most promising new technologies to markets outside Russia and sell its established businesses in the country, including a popular internet browser and food delivery and taxi-hailing apps, according to two people familiar with the matter who wouldn't speak publicly because of the sensitivity of the discussions.
The plan aims to shield itself from its home market and highlight the stifling impact of Western sanctions on Russia's once-thriving technology sector.
People familiar with the matter said that the war in Ukraine has made the development of Yandex's new technologies unviable, such as self-driving cars, machine learning and cloud services. Such businesses, which require access to Western markets, experts and technology, would fail if they are associated with Russia, one of them said.