, Columnist
Brain Drain From Putin’s Russia Is Far From Over
As we approach the third year of the war in Ukraine, Moscow’s loss could be the West’s gain.
A Yandex cycle courier rides in Moscow City in 2021.
Souce: Bloomberg
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It’s the end of an era for Russia’s best-known tech company, Yandex NV, once hailed as the country’s answer to Alphabet Inc.’s Google and valued at $30 billion before the invasion of Ukraine. This month, it agreed to sell its domestic business for about $5.2 billion, a cut-price level for the Russian tycoons picking it up under the Kremlin’s watch.
Yet the deal also hints at a wartime brain drain of scientific and engineering talent that the West could do more to capture.