Yandex warns of bond repayment and supply risks

[fffobar]

Normally you'd have simply floated another bond (not a puttable one this time). Credit is a funny thing, it becomes unavailable the moment you need it most ...

[PedroBatista]

Credit exists when you’re able to pay it.

[jug]

Yandex going belly up would certainly send a message to Russia

Like Google Search going out in the western world

[lovelyviking]

send message and then what? the propaganda there would tell that west is using any chance to put russia down and here is another example.

People in the west are too naive to realise that in russia no body asks what people think. The level of propaganda is so strong that people would believe whatever they are told.

The idiocy of those in the west who think that russians can decide something once they face sanctions is overwhelming. In the very long therm it may be but thus completely inadequate measure in the moment.

Another idiocy is to think that claiming that NATO isn’t the part of the conflict can prevent them to actually become a part of the conflict. The moment russia will decide they will invent the cause to attack just as they did with Ukraine.

[zo1]

I don't think it'll send the message you or the West think it will. I'm not even Russian and I think this all amounts to bullying by the West because they're petulant and can't stand the fact that they are powerless to step in with actual force.

[alfiedotwtf]

This is just Yandex, but I'm sure other Russian companies would be in the same boat...

Does anyone know when debt events for other Russian bluechips, and possibly even Russian government bonds themselves are?

[riffraff]

They already defaulted via regulation

https://dcweekly.org/2022/03/04/russia-halts-payments-on-bon...

[randogeuebdb]

Not arguing against sanctions in general, but for South Africa, the collapse of the soviet union, which had been propping up the south african economy, played a more important role.

https://reason.com/2013/12/06/did-economic-sanctions-help-en...

[ineedasername]

Economic pressure is usually cited as a primary factor leading to the end of apartheid, beginning in 1990, which is before the collapse of the former Soviet Union. I'm not disagreeing that the collapse played a part, but I think it's safe to say there was no single cause. Without ever-increasing sanctions the ball might not have started rolling in 1990. Without Soviet collapse it might not have unraveled quite as fast or in the way that it did.

[graeme]

Good article. However it doesn’t say the Soviet Union propped up South Africa.

Rather it says that the ANC (opposition) was supported by the Soviets. So the apartheid government argued that apartheid was necessary to keep out communism.

When the Soviets collapsed, this argument weakened and more people were convinced to dismantle apartheid.

[abandonliberty]

There will be collateral damage. ~20% of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP is remittance from Russia. Sanctions should be kept on Russia. This is an opportunity to further unite.

Supporting these affected nations is a win for all involved, except Russia. We should prevent them from going into recession, enable them to reduce their dependence on Russia, while strengthening our relationship with them.

[jmopp]

That makes zero sense. The apartheid government was staunchly anti-Communist.

[detaro]

dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30562073

[jmconfuzeus]

I hope development on Clickhouse doesn't go south.

[futhey]

ClickHouse, Inc spun out of Yandex last year and is now a private company HQ in the bay area, although their funding is partially from participation by Yandex. No idea if this moved any portion of their development. Would be curious to see if this has any impact, or if they're going to get lucky and evade Yandex's current problems.

[osrec]

I believe the sanctions may well trigger a change in the Russian public's opinion of Putin.

Right now, my Russian friends tell me that state propaganda is so strong that a significant proportion of the Russian population believe the Ukranian deaths are due to Ukranians just killing themselves.

Surely at some point they'll see that what they're being told doesn't make sense. Especially if they also start to see a deterioration in their quality of life...

[gameswithgo]

After seeing what about half of America was able to believe for over six years I have no confidence that people will realize things don’t make sense

[dragonwriter]

> Surely at some point they'll see that what they're being told doesn't make sense

The crackdown on non-state media, especially if it is not exactly in line with the state propaganda message, makes it harder to do that.

> Especially if they also start to see a deterioration in their quality of life...

A narrative that explains and places blame elsewhere for that is fairly easy with complete control of information, especially since it being due to economic warfare by the West is true (and how even some Western leaders have described it.)

[itsoktocry]

>a significant proportion of the Russian population believe the Ukranian deaths are due to Ukranians just killing themselves.

This sounds like Western meta-propaganda. Russia isn't some mysterious other-world filled with low IQ people. Are we really to believe that swaths of their population believes the Ukranians are merely offing themselves during an invasion? Is there anything we can read that points to this, even Fox News-type article making the claim? Colour me skpetical.

[PetarStefanovic]

If history has taught us anything is that sanctions only reinforce authoritarian figures. The common people are the ones who suffer the most from them, not the elites, and the common people then blame their suffering on outside forces.

[DesertBattery]

You're wrong. People getting angry at West and talking about war. Including nuclear.

[saiya-jin]

I don't think you understand Russian mentality. They largely gave up on democracy, freedom and lawful state long time ago. Those that really objected and were smart enough mostly went away and don't look back, since you can't fight that and survive, only join them or live in bitter poverty.

There are things that might work - big celebrities like top hockey players and other sportsmen could stand up and criticize Putin directly, not just issue some blank statements of wanting peace and not even mentioning what they actually mean by that (Ovechkin is a prime example).

Microsoft could ban any access to license servers, updates, office stuff etc (that might be a massive hit, I recall some UK submarines was running completely on Windows XP few years, I am sure half the state would stop working immediately).

Apple and Google could block any access to their stores, updates, apps etc... Ideally with some message explaining why, shown to every user. But that's a bold move, I don't think they have balls for that yet. Things will get much worse in Ukraine at this rate though, so this may change.

[PedroBatista]

I wouldn’t be so optimistic, the country is run by people with the exact skills needed to keep the population in an alternate reality: psyops and a brutal secret police.

Add a cultivated desire to be “great again” plus economic hardship imposed from outside and Putin can hold a tight leach as he’s been doing. That’s the first time he’s probably gambling his life, but he’s far from being defeated.

[taf2]

In 1930s and following world war 1… did the measure to punish Germany not result in world war 2? Don’t get me wrong, I’m very pro we should do more to help Ukraine … I feel good when I hear oligarchs are losing their super yachts… and I do not see away for the world to do business with Russia now we should be cutting oil purchases too… but really what does this do ? Does it not just further cement a people under the control of a crazy person with more nukes then required to end the world? I feel like maybe we should have sent in air power and troops and been like “bring it”. When things cool down again after Putin - I sure hope the world can come together and finally remove the nukes

[bigDinosaur]

Just like North Koreans see through the propaganda? Unfortunately I just think that's wishful thinking.

[ineedasername]

Surely at some point they'll see that what they're being told doesn't make sens

In the US as significant part of the population will believe that the political party in power is the source of everything bad, counter to any evidence. Paradoxically, evidence against that point of view is almost taken as proof: "that's what they want you to believe!".

Try talking to an ardent Trump opponent or supporter that he did even the least little thing right or wrong. It's maddening the contortions of reasoning and deflection. He's so very polarizing so the phenomena is more extreme with him but the same goes for any president in my lifetime.

Now imagine there's only one real political party, more controls on information, and a general human desire to not see themselves or their "tribe" as the villains in any situation...

The type of sentiment change you're hoping for can occur, but my own observation is that it only happens very gradually over many years or very suddenly when sparked by something cataclysmic, and that second method has as much chance of hardening the mindset with more rationalizing as it does changing it.

[CamperBob2]

Surely at some point they'll see that what they're being told doesn't make sense.

I remember thinking that way, too, back in 2016.

[throwaway894345]

I’ve been lurking on r/AskARussian lately and people there are pissed at the west for sanctions—they don’t understand why the west can’t just sanction Putin and cronies, and a good chunk of them also seem to think the west is hellbent on invading Russia and Putin’s war is necessary to stop the West from acquiring Ukraine (presumably a platform from which to invade Russia). And note that this sub is much less insane than r/russia whose mods are straight Russian state censors.

In other words, even the least-propagandized Russians seem to be heavily influenced.

[croes]

Are you sure? Could simply be put as economic war by the west against russian competitors.

[allisdust]

Are the Chinese seeing past the propaganda? It will be the same with Russians. Putin wanted this. Now his hands are not dirty and who is going to protest the closing of internet, lack of foreign investors, lack of foreign companies when they are done by the west themselves. New companies will come from within Russia, new investment will flow eventually from either China or from within. Mission accomplished and he has cemented his power till he dies.

[stavros]

I think that's optimistic. This is easy to spin as "the west are Nazis and hate that we've tried to liberate Ukraine and this is all their fault".

[rectang]

I hope you're right — that's certainly one of the conceptual rationales for sanctions.

Unfortunately, it will probably take a lot of catastrophic economic damage before Putin loses support — as in whole companies going down, life savings destroyed, bankruptcies, loss of homes, hunger, desperation. Think of how difficult it is to overcome your own biases — have you ever changed your mind about something your country did?

Sanctions are horrible especially on this scale, and even those of us who believe they are appropriate have to stay clear-eyed about what happens.

[throw_m239339]

> I believe the sanctions may well trigger a change in the Russian public's opinion of Putin.

Doesn't really matter in a dictatorship. Putin is likely to suspend the "right to vote" next and turn Russia into North Korea, officially.

[cabirum]

And Ukrainans believe there's a "ghost plane" in the sky that destroyed half russian air force.

[Mizza]

What's to stop Putin from nationalizing Yandex? They don't really have a choice but to move back to a centrally planned economy, why not just yoink it?