Prepare for redraw?
"Russia's Google" is already removing borders of Ukraine from maps
Created: 06/10/2022, 13:02
By: Bedrettin Bölükbasi
In the Ukraine war, Russia signals its intention to annex parts of Ukraine.
In the midst of these discussions, the Russian service Yandex is now suddenly removing state borders on maps.
Moscow — The Ukraine conflict is currently coming to a head in eastern Ukraine.
This map shows where the Ukraine war is raging.
According to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the troops of Russian ruler Vladimir Putin are about to capture the entire Luhansk region.
To this end, they intensify their attacks on the strategically important city of Sievjerodonetsk.
The Russian invasion of Donbass has been slow in recent weeks, but it is now accelerating.
In southern Ukraine, on the other hand, things were going much better for Russia right from the start of the attack.
The Kherson region was quickly taken.
Moscow-appointed officials in Kherson and elsewhere have repeatedly expressed desire for a “referendum” on accession to the Russian Federation.
Yandex search engine, known as the Russian answer to Google, has now made a surprising change in its maps during these debates.
War in Ukraine: No more state borders at Yandex - also for the Russian-Ukrainian border
Russian online giant Yandex unexpectedly removed all state borders on its maps.
A look at "Yandex Maps" shows that the borders between the individual countries are hardly visible at all.
Yandex is by no means an exception to this decision for the border between Ukraine and Russia.
Again, the borders have been removed.
The fact that this happened during the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine is now fueling speculation that the group is preparing to redraw Russia's borders after a possible annexation of Ukrainian territories.
After all, it wouldn't be the first time that the group has designed its cards based on the Kremlin's idea.
Already after the illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, Yandex modified international maps and presented the peninsula as part of Russia, as the Russian state agency
Ria Novosti announced
at the time.
Russian search engine Yandex has removed borders from its maps.
© Yandex/Screenshot
Ukraine war: Russia's Yandex wants to focus on 'local navigation' - removing state borders
Yandex itself does not link the current decision to remove state borders on online maps to the Ukraine war.
The group intends to focus more on natural features in its maps from now on, the independent Russian online newspaper
Moscow Times
quoted a spokesman for Yandex as saying.
The company told Russian tech news
site Durov Code
: "Our job is to represent the world around us.
So the map will show mountains, rivers and other data that are usually found on such maps.” Yandex Maps is a “universal service” that helps people find nearby organizations and locations, stressed a Group spokesman in turn in conversation with the US news portal
Techcrunch
.
Therefore, Yandex will focus on local navigation instead of national borders.
(bb)
