In Finland, the data center of the Russian "Yandex" was disconnected from electricity

Since the end of April 2022, the data center of the Russian search engine Yandex has been disconnected from the Finnish electrical network. Since then, Finnish energy companies have refused to sign new electricity supply contracts with the search engine due to suspicions that it may spread war propaganda, Euractiv reports.

It is known that the Yandex Data Processing Center has been operating in Finland since 2015 and is located in Myantsjala, about 50 km north of Helsinki. It is considered the only one in Europe, the rest — in Russia. According to the publication, for almost 7 years, the waste heat of the data center accounted for approximately 75% of the centralized heating of the entire district.

In March 2022, the company's CEO was added to the sanctions list, after which he resigned. The company itself was not sanctioned by the West.

Meanwhile, Finnish electricity suppliers have terminated their agreements, and Yandex has not yet found a new supplier. Since the end of April, the data center of the Russian company has been running on electricity from a diesel generator.

"Yandex will do everything possible to find a new partner who will help us continue working. There are several options that we are still actively implementing," Alexey Zhumykin, head of the data center operations center, said in a comment to YLE TV channel.

According to him, Finland remains a great place for a Russian company to work.

Meanwhile, the reputation of Yandex may be tarnished forever by the statements of the Finnish authorities. She sees the company as a possible distributor of fake news. In particular, the country's Communications Minister Timo Harakka stressed that the company is "closely monitored".

Recall that in early March, Lev Gershenzon, the former head of the news division at Yandex, appealed to his colleagues not to remain silent about the war with Ukraine.