It's trivially verifiable (I still switch between using Jetbrains and Emacs, not a dealbreaker for me).

Here's a press release on their website:

> In 2019, two eight-story towers known as Space became the new home of JetBrains in Saint Petersburg.

> The largest of our company offices is located on the bank of the Neva River, with a panoramic view looking out over the Gulf of Finland.

> IntelliJ Labs Co. Ltd. Primorsky pr., 70/1 Saint Petersburg 197374, Russia

https://www.jetbrains.com/company/contacts/st-petersburg/

They are very open about it and I don't see any problem with it. You could find some issues with them running a cloud software like that, but given that they primarily produce tools that are largely open source it is not a problem in my mind.

Here is an article about their operations in Prague (in czech), from what I understand they have most of developers in St petesburgh..

https://ekonom.ihned.cz/c1-65918420-rusti-it-gerojove-na-ces...

The guidelines also say: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

In this case, assuming good faith would be assuming that @ordx is stating a fact that they're aware of, not trying to stir up controversy. If you were interested in finding out how they knew that, you could politely ask them what their source of information was, without implying that they have ulterior motives.