Russian self-driving tech firm Yandex has positioned its operations within the U.S. on hiatus.

The corporate stated Friday it has paused testing of its robotaxi fleet in Ann Arbor, Mich., and is not making restaurant deliveries with its six-wheeled sidewalk Rover bots on school campuses throughout the nation.

“Our AV take a look at fleet in Ann Arbor is grounded in the meanwhile, however we hope to renew operations sooner or later,” a spokesperson advised Automotive Information.

Yandex stopped its operations as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its second week, a battle which has sparked worldwide outcry and compelled companies throughout the globe to chop ties with Russian corporations.

A type of was meals supply service Grubhub, which stated Thursday it could finish its partnership with Yandex. The 2 corporations had labored collectively on the Ohio State College and College of Arizona campuses.

“We’re working with our campus companions on alternate service choices as we shift away from Yandex over time,” a Grubhub spokesperson stated Friday.

Yandex says the supply bots utilized in these operations shall be transferred to areas outdoors the U.S. the place the corporate both operates or is making ready to launch deliveries.

It launched the Rover bots within the Moscow suburb of Skolkovo in April 2020 because the pandemic struck and a precedence was positioned on supply companies. They expanded to the Russian metropolis of Innopolis after which to Ann Arbor, the place Yandex already had examined seven of its Hyundai Sonata robotaxis, within the spring of 2021.

The Rovers journey at about 5 mph on sidewalks and are geared up with cameras and lidar sensors. Although Yandex had personnel on the bottom in Ann Arbor, the corporate might remotely management the Rovers by way of a teleoperations middle in Moscow in the event that they discovered themselves in difficult conditions.

With relations between Russia and the U.S. deteriorating, the concept that robots working on American streets being managed from past the nation’s borders would now seem fraught with nationwide safety implications.

Yandex had chosen Ann Arbor as its long-term North American hub in August 2020.

The corporate itself is a big Russian search engine agency that runs a taxi reserving service in additional than 100 cities. The corporate began engaged on autonomous driving know-how in 2016 and formally began its self-driving improvement program in January 2017.

The corporate made its worldwide debut at CES in January 2019 providing self-driving rides all through Las Vegas. It has examined self-driving autos in Tel Aviv, Israel, since 2019. The standing of its Israeli operations was unclear Friday.