Rambler, one of Russia’s biggest web portals with three million daily users, is to lay off half its staff according to two reports from Russia, via Yakov. The cuts are to come from non-core sub-brands such as Rambler Telecom, Rambler-Foto and Rambler Vision and could affect as many as 255 staff. This is fallout from the Russian FAS anti-trust authority’s decision to block Google’s bid for contextual advertising firm Begun, in which Rambler has a 50.1 percent stake. Rambler would have received $70.1 million (£43 million) in cash if the deal went through – a significant sum compared to its cash balance of $26.1 million (£16 million) as of June 30. In the first half of the year Rambler made revenues of $51.7 million (£31.7 million) and made an operating loss of $1.5 million (£920,000).

And meanwhile Rambler’s grip on the Russian search market is slipping: from a 15 percent market share in January last year, for the last three months it comes in at fourth with 7.4 percent behind search.mail.ru, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and market leader Yandex. But it’s still a big online player in Russia and last month launched a $5 million (£3.06 million) outdoor advertising campaign designed to help double its three million daily users. Russia remains a growth market with analysts estimating total online spend to be between $1 billion (£610 million) and $1.5 billion (£920 million) this year—but until the country’s authorities let big digital deals happen with the world’s top online brands, the full potential of that growth may not be realised.

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