Is Nebius a Russian company?
No. Nebius Group N.V. is Dutch-incorporated, headquartered in Amsterdam, and holds no Russian legal entities. It was previously Yandex N.V., which sold its entire Russia-based business in July 2024 and renamed itself. The full sequence is below.
How the separation happened
| When | What changed |
|---|---|
| 2022 | Yandex N.V. moves intellectual property out of Russia. Nasdaq suspends trading in the shares amid sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine. |
| Feb 2024 | Agreement signed to sell the Russian business to a consortium of Russian investors for $5.4B, roughly a 50% discount, reflecting Russia's mandatory pricing rules for exits by owners from “unfriendly” countries. |
| Jul 2024 | Divestment completes. The Dutch parent renames itself Nebius Group N.V. and keeps the international infrastructure and engineering teams. The largest corporate exit from Russia since the invasion. |
| Oct 2024 | Shares resume trading on Nasdaq as NBIS, now an AI-infrastructure business. |
Common questions about the Yandex split
Is Nebius a Russian company?
No. Nebius Group N.V. is incorporated in the Netherlands and headquartered in Amsterdam, and it no longer owns any Russian legal entities. It was formerly Yandex N.V., the Dutch parent of the Russian search company. In July 2024 that parent sold all of its Russia-based businesses to a consortium of Russian investors for $5.4 billion and renamed itself Nebius Group. The Russian business kept the Yandex name and is now a separate company with separate owners.
Is Nebius the same company as Yandex?
It is the same legal entity, under a new name and with different assets. Yandex N.V. was the Dutch holding company; after selling its Russian operations it renamed itself Nebius Group N.V. What stayed behind was the international infrastructure, engineering teams and non-Russian units. What left was the Russian search, ads, taxi and e-commerce business now trading in Moscow as Yandex. Same corporate shell, almost entirely different company.
Is Nebius sanctioned?
Nebius Group N.V. is not itself under Western sanctions, and it trades on Nasdaq under NBIS. Its shares were suspended from Nasdaq during 2022–2024 while the separation was worked out, and resumed trading in October 2024 after the divestment completed. Sanctions exposure was a central reason for the split: the company moved its intellectual property out of Russia in 2022. Anyone with a specific compliance question should check current designations directly rather than relying on a summary.
Why does this keep coming up?
Because the ticker is young and the history is genuinely confusing. Nebius has been listed under this name only since late 2024, the founders and much of the early engineering talent are Russian, and the Yandex association is well known. The relevant facts for an investor are that the corporate structure is Dutch, the Russian assets were sold in a completed transaction, and the remaining business is built around data centres in Finland and elsewhere in Europe and the United States.