This is completely unrelated to recent events. Before initial invasion in 2014 many Russian IT companies had huge presence in Ukraine and many Yandex services including search had localized versions and own search ranking, etc. Yandex still have versions for Belarus, Kazahstan, other ex-USSR countries and even Turkey. But chances for international expansion was pretty much destroyd by political situation.

Also keep in mind Yandex was different company a decade ago. Back then Ilya Segalovich been CTO there (he died of cancer in 2013) and he supported opposition and even participated in street protests in Moscow.