The British rock band Placebo on September 3 announced on Instagram that its scheduled performance at the Yandex Park Live festival in Kazakhstan on September 8 was canceled for "compelling circumstantial reasons...not related to the professionalism of the organizers."
The group added that its performance at a similar event sponsored by the Russian tech giant Yandex in Georgia on September 12 was also canceled.
"We are deeply regretful for the disappointment this is bound to cause. We apologize profusely to all our fans in Kazakhstan and Georgia for canceling at such a late stage. We also apologize profusely to those of you who planned to travel from afar," the group said on Instagram.
The cancelation of the concerts in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, and the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, came amid criticism of Yandex's involvement in the events.
The Park Live music festival was held annually in Moscow from 2013 to 2019. Yandex, which operates the popular Russian search engine Yandex Search, has been the event's major sponsor since then.
Such rock groups as Gorillaz, Massive Attack, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Killers, and many other well-known rock bands performed at the festival when it was held in Moscow. A related festival was held concurrently in Kyiv.
The festival was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus outbreak and, in 2022, because of Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine that year.
After a five-year break, the event's organizers said earlier this year that the festival would be revived and held in Almaty on September 6-8.
Yandex is the festival's major sponsor.
After it was announced in June that Placebo would be a headline act at the event in Almaty, the band has been targeted by critics who have accused it of cooperating with a Russian-owned company they accuse of supporting Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh stepped down as CEO after he was sanctioned by the European Union in 2022 after it accused Yandex of "removing content critical of the Kremlin, such as content related to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine." Volozh subsequently openly condemned the Russian invasion as "barbaric."
In February, Yandex announced it was leaving Russia and its Dutch-based parent company sold it, making Yandex fully Russian-owned. The European Union lifted the sanctions against Volozh in May.
In July, the British rock group Editors announced their decision to withdraw from the Park Live music festival in Almaty, saying that they made the decision after "having been informed who the sponsor of the event is."