VK has agreed to sell 100% of the RuStore app store. The buyer was Dmitry Pankrushev, CEO of the store's development company. The deal amount is not disclosed.
RuStore, created by VK with the support of the Ministry of Digital Development in 2022, has become the main catalog of Android applications in Russia. The store exited beta testing in February 2023. The team will continue to work as before, VK promises, and development will be flexible and independent of the holding company.
The deal occurred a week after the EU included VK and the legal entity-developer "Max" in a new sanctions list. This is the first time VK has been directly sanctioned by the European Union, although its CEO Vladimir Kiriyenko has been under US, EU, and UK sanctions since 2022.