Elena Bunina

"As CEO I had to hand over the right to sign and wait after the resignation letter when it went into effect in a month, nothing else. I handed things over as HR director — that was the main role — and as director of educational projects. And so the international part of the educational service Practicum moved with me. And I left the bigger Russian educational part in Russia, it was the most expensive and painful parting with it."

"At the start of the war, we knew that about a third of our graduates lived and worked abroad, about two-thirds were in Russia. Many of them worked at Yandex. For the most part these were graduates of older years who were already adults. Newcomers did not get abroad so quickly. That was the picture at the beginning of 2022."

"The next time we did a survey was after the mobilization in the fall of 2022. This time only one-third stayed in Russia, two-thirds work abroad. That’s the rate of the first year of the war about adult professionals."

"Teachers will be killed” is the State Duma. Teachers are their peers. The deputies sit there and think, “Why should we release these people?” And the students are their children. The authorities, deputies, ministers, generals have children. You can’t tell everyone from the mobilization; it’s easier to tell all the students."