Apparently they used to be in California, thus subject to US law etc. No longer, apparently. It's not clear what this will mean for the non-Russian arm of LJ, but you can read
lots more here, including links and directions on how to port your entire LJ to Dreamwidth.
Interesting in light of recent events with Obama, Trump, etc. I hope this isn't some sort of omen for how 2017 is going to go :P