A company owned almost entirely by Western investors has become accustomed to sites that spread false Russian statements earning thousands of dollars a day through ads on the site.
Yandex is known as the Google of Russia and, like its larger and more prominent counterpart, runs a search engine and a vast virtual advertising business that connects brands and corporations with publishers.
Over the past month, the Bureau has documented advertisements provided through Yandex appearing alongside disinformation and propaganda produced through more than a dozen Russian-language news sites. In total, the sites attracted more than 420 million visits in February, according to SimilarWeb, suggesting they can rack up tens of millions of dollars a year through virtual ads, all channeled through a company owned by some of the world’s largest investment firms, most of them founded in the United States.
“A big component of disinformation and online propaganda is that it’s quite financially successful,” said Jane Lytvynenko, a researcher at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center who specializes in analyzing disinformation. “I think reducing that profit stream is very important. “
The Bureau discovered ads accompanied by false stories about U. S. biological weapons labs. The U. S. Department of Homeland Security in Ukraine claims that President Zelensky appears to have symptoms of drug use and reports that russian claims that the “special operation” is proceeding entirely as planned. Others detail Ukraine’s alleged provocations. best friend Belarus or separatist regions, or call the Russian invasion an “operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine. “
Although Yandex is headquartered in Moscow, it is indexed on Nasdaq in New York under a company registered in the Netherlands. The Bureau’s research shows that the vast majority of its shares are held by investors in the West, specifically in the United States. Among them are some of the largest investment firms, asset managers and banks in the world.
As of March 16, Yandex’s largest sole shareholder, Capital Group, an asset control fund with trillions of dollars under control, which owns a 13% stake in the company. The time and the fourth shareholder were also massive asset control companies, Invesco and Fidelity.
Capital Group said it had a long-standing policy of not commenting on its assets, but added: “Our hearts go out to the other Ukrainians and all those who have been harmed during this war. “
Fidelity said it had made the decision not to buy Russian securities recently and would divest itself of its existing Russian holdings.
“Investors also want to think about how their cash is used, where that cash is invested, and how they can isolate Russia and Russian companies,” Lytvynenko said. “Especially since they spread propaganda all over the world. “
Of the ten most sensible shareholders, only two are not giant Western investment firms: a circle of relatives accepts as true on the call of Yandex founder Arkady Volozh and a former Yandex executive. More than a part is based on États-Unis. La The company’s shareholding disposition means that Volozh and other directors, officers and workers control more than 50% of the voting rights, but only about 11% of the dividend shares.
The percentage value of Yandex has almost halved since the invasion of Ukraine. GrubHub has ended a partnership to create food delivery robots, while Uber has announced it is accelerating plans to sever ties with the company. Tigran Khudaverdyan, Yandex’s deputy director general, resigned on March 15 after being added to the EU sanctions list. The company itself has yet to be sanctioned, despite calls from some MEPs.
Some of the sites documented through the Bureau have direct links to the Russian state. The Bureau found that Yandex ran ads on the online page of state-owned news company RIA and two subsidiaries of state-owned company Sputnik, the latter of which it banned in the EU.
One of the most vital sites, with more than 177 million visits in February, was Lenta. Ru. Lenta is part of Rambler, a media organization that was acquired in 2020 through Sberbank, Russia’s largest state-owned and sanctioned bank. The Bureau showed that Lenta. Ru was Yandex’s video advertising until at least March 10.
Media outlets that are not meant to connect directly with the Russian state come with Tsargrad TV’s website, described as “Fox News of Russia. “Tsargrad was created in 2015 through Konstantin Malofeev, a banker sanctioned by the EU, THE US. In 2014, it was added to the U. S. and Canada for its involvement in Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and was added to Britain’s sanctions list earlier this month. The channel promoted the values of the Russian Orthodox Church and presented its help for Vladimir Putin’s patriotic program.
Tsargrad TV’s parent company also appears to be connected to another site reviewed by the Bureau, Novorossiya. The term is now related to Russian-backed separatist teams in Ukraine. Novorossiya’s internet domain was first registered in May 2014, just weeks after Russia began its annexation of Crimea.
Tsargrad and Novorossiya between them attracted more than forty-five million views in February, according to SimilarWeb.
Lytvynenko told the Bureau that news sites “essentially legitimize data that might be circulating on social media. If something is covered through someone’s website, it can be considered to have more authority than a social media account. So we see a kind of circular narrative happening, where this data is sown in social networks and in those more classic websites, and has been repeated and legitimized on the network.
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