Google’s Russian Branch Has Filed For Bankruptcy Protection

According to a company statement, Google’s Russian branch has filed for bankruptcy protection. Authorities in Russia had confiscated Google’s bank account. Thus, Google’s Russian branch filed a notice of intention to declare bankruptcy. Reuters quotes a Google representative as saying the following:

“It has made it impossible for us to operate our Russia office. This includes hiring and paying Russia-based workers, and fulfilling other financial responsibilities.”

Google has halted most of its business activity in the nation. This was following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. The company will continue to supply Russians with free services. This includes Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, and Android despite the bankruptcy declaration.

Russia penalized Google $82,000 last May. This was because it failed to remove unlawful information. In December, the business got penalized $98 million for the same reasons. Estimated at 5.7 percent of Google’s Russian turnover in 2021. All of this led to huge losses. As a result, the company is now on the brink of bankruptcy. 

Regulator of telecommunications Roskomnadzor is pushing YouTube as well. They want it to remove limitations for Russian media access in recent months. Google refused to give the Russian TV station back access to its YouTube account. Then, bailiffs reportedly took over 1 billion rubles from the company.

Apart from Google News, Russia does not have plans to limit access to YouTube for citizens of the nation. Residents claimed last week that the country would suffer as a consequence of such an action. As many as 90 million Russians use the streaming network, according to reports.

Russia made efforts to establish a closed-off internet for internal use only. Even then the government intends to maintain its global network connection. The future plans of Google’s operations in Russia is not yet decided.