Yandex CEO Elena Bunina left her post. She said that she “cannot live in a country that is at war with its neighbors.”

The CEO of the Russian Yandex, Elena Bunina, is leaving her position, TASS reports with reference to the company's press service.

Artem Savinovsky, head of the company's media services, has been appointed acting CEO of Yandex. “We will tell you about further changes later,” added Yandex.

Earlier, Yandex announced that Elena Bunina would leave the post of CEO on March 15, giving way to one of the top managers of the company, Tigran Khudaverdyan. But when the European Union imposed sanctions on Khudaverdyan on the same day, he left the post of general director. After that, Yandex reported that Bunina would act as CEO until April 15.

The Bell writes that Elena Bunina spoke out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She announced this in a letter to colleagues published on the internal Yandex forum, which was at the disposal of the publication. Bunina said that the war caught her outside of Russia - she was on vacation in Cyprus. On March 1, Bunina flew to Israel, where she worked for the entire month in the company's office in Tel Aviv.

“I will not return [to Russia]: I cannot live in a country that is at war with its neighbors,” she wrote. Bunina added that she would formally remain the CEO of the company until April 15. “I will transfer the rest of my roles gradually. Until I fully transfer it, I will not drop it, ”the letter says.

Elena Bunina has been working as the HR director of Yandex since January 2011, and since December 2017 she has combined this work with the position of CEO of Yandex.