I didn't know about that! I pretty much stopped using LJ around 2010 when my life got busy and distracting. By the time I was interested in coming back Dreamwidth seemed like a much better fit anyway.

I don't know the history behind livejournal's ownership honestly, but I know there are a lot of strict rules/sanctions about how Russian companies can do business with international users. I've seen other software that has been forced to ban users with Russian forms of payment, so perhaps they were forced to move if their former hosting company was unable to continue to provide services.