Russia said Thursday that Google and Apple’s refusal to remove jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s app ahead of elections could be seen as interference in the country’s domestic affairs. The country is holding parliamentary elections later this month, with nearly all vocal Kremlin critics including Navalny’s allies barred from running. Roskomnadzor, the Internet and telecom …
Russia accuses Apple, Google of election interference Read More
Earlier this week Chainalyis published the key findings of their 2021 Geography of Cryptocurrency report. According to this research, Eastern Europe is severely affected by illicit cryptocurrency-related activity. In relative terms, the region is second after Africa in terms of exposure — but its overall crypto economy is much larger than that of Africa. The key findings of this …
Report: Eastern Europe strikingly affected by crypto scams Read More
Russia’s earnings from tech exports have jumped more than threefold over the last two years, according to a new report from Moscow’s Higher School of Economics (HSE). The export sales of scientific and technology services and IP-protected products reached $4.5 billion in 2020 — up 30% from 2019, three times more than in 2018, and fifteen to twenty …
Yandex has struck a $1 billion deal to buy out U.S. ride-hailing giant Uber from a host of the pair’s joint ventures in Russia, the company announced Tuesday. Yandex and Uber first combined their ride-hailing businesses in 2017, with a deal to merge their operations in Russia and a number of other ex-Soviet countries. This partnership has seen the pair cement …
Yandex buys Uber out of food delivery partnership in $1 billion deal Read More
Dostavista, now rebranded to Borzo, has completed an impressive Series C round, raising $35 million from a bevy of major international investors. This urban delivery service with Russian roots has been backed by the RDIF, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund (which made an early announcement about the deal in June); Mubadala, its Emirati peer; VNV Global, a major …
Delivery service Dostavista raises $35 million from top investors, rebrands to ‘Borzo’ Read More
Nexters, one of the most successful Russian-founded game development companies, is going public today through a merger with special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Kismet. The company is traded on the NASDAQ under the new ticker symbols “GDEV” (ordinary shares) and “GDEVW” (warrants). The Kismet SPAC which just merged with Nexters closed its $250 million NASDAQ IPO in …
A SPAC with Russian flavors: Nexters and Kismet complete merger Read More
In the latest move of a long saga, a Moscow court fined yesterday three US digital companies for violating the country’s personal data storage legislation. Facebook and Twitter were fined 15 million rubles (some $200,000 at the current exchange rate) and 17 million rubles ($230,000), respectively, for repeat infractions, while WhatsApp will have to pay 4 million …
Yandex, the NASDAQ-listed Russian digital giant, yesterday announced the launch of its express grocery delivery service in Paris. “Leveraging its own advanced technologies and backed by its unique and vast expertise and experience in the e-grocery market. Yango Deli has started operating with four warehouses (also known as ‘dark stores’), which will cover approximately 1 million …
Rostec, a state-owned conglomerate covering a wide range of technologies, including military ones, has established a company dedicated to supply 4G, 5G and 6G equipment on the national market. Dubbed ‘Specter,’ the company will aim to organize the “cooperation” of Russian equipment makers in technical and production terms, reports business daily Kommersant. In November last year the …
Rostec creates 5G subsidiary to diminish Russia’s reliance on foreign equipment Read More
American investor Michael Calvey has launched an appeal against his controversial conviction on embezzlement charges, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Thursday. “The court has received an appeal by Michael Calvey’s defense lawyers,” a representative of Moscow’s Meshchansky district court told the news agency. The appeal is the latest twist of a legal saga that has …
US investor Calvey appeals Russian embezzlement conviction Read More
In its July 2021 “Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report,” Facebook announced that it banned 63 Facebook accounts and 243 Instagram accounts for spreading disinformation about Western coronavirus vaccines. The flagged content included various memes about the supposed dangers of COVID-19 shots, especially AstraZeneca, and numerous comments posted elsewhere in English, Hindi, Spanish, and Portuguese. The disinformation …
Facebook report: Russian groups spread disinformation about Western covid vaccines Read More
On Friday, Aug. 6, more than two and a half years after its beginning, a high-profile case emblematic of the rule of law in Russian business life came to a decisive development. American Michael Calvey, French Philippe Delpal and their Russian colleagues of the Baring Vostok managing team were found guilty by a Moscow court. …
