Ukraine struck and partially disabled a major data centre operated by Russian technology company Yandex on Friday, October 9, marking the second attack on the company’s infrastructure in two consecutive days. The strikes signal an expansion of the ongoing war’s economic targets, as both Moscow and Kyiv increasingly target digital infrastructure alongside energy facilities, warehouses and other strategic assets.
Yandex confirmed that its data centre in Russia’s Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, had been hit by Ukrainian drones and partially taken out of action. Ukrainian arms manufacturer Firepoint said Kyiv had used its FP-1 one-way attack drones to target what it described as Yandex’s largest data centre, claiming that several modules had been completely disabled.
The extent of the damage and the duration of the disruption remain unclear. However, the attacks have raised concerns about the resilience of Russia’s digital infrastructure and the potential consequences for businesses dependent on cloud computing services.
Credits: Reuters
Second Attack Disrupts Yandex’s AI Infrastructure
Friday’s strike followed a Ukrainian drone attack on Yandex’s data centre in Sasovo, southeast of Moscow, on Thursday. The facility houses two of the company’s three supercomputers used to develop its artificial intelligence models.
Yandex, frequently described as Russia’s equivalent of Google, plays a significant role in the country’s technology ecosystem. Its services include navigation, music and video streaming, food delivery, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
The company has warned that the successive attacks are making it difficult to maintain services used by millions of Russians daily. It said it was working around the clock to restore disrupted operations, describing the recovery process as a significant challenge.
Yandex also announced an agreement with other cloud providers to help customers transfer their data and services quickly, an effort aimed at limiting the wider impact on businesses relying on its infrastructure.
Businesses Face Data Access and Service Disruptions
The attacks have already highlighted the risks faced by businesses that depend on centralised cloud infrastructure.
Alexander Savitsky, who runs Pulse, a dating application with approximately 8,000 users, told Reuters that none of its users had been able to access the service since Thursday.
According to Savitsky, the company was unable to reach its backup database hosted on Yandex Cloud. Attempts to restore the service elsewhere resulted in an internal error message.
Although the company had not confirmed any actual data loss, Savitsky said the situation was serious because the project represented three years of work. He also warned that prolonged downtime could cause users to abandon the platform and potentially damage customer trust.
Other Russian services reported technical difficulties on Thursday, including real estate aggregator Cian, book portal Litmarket, Russian Railways’ website and the website of professional football club Spartak Moscow.
The full extent of the disruption remains uncertain, with Yandex continuing to assess the situation and work towards restoring affected services.
Yandex Shares Fall as Investors Assess Risks
The attacks also affected investor sentiment. Yandex shares fell by more than 4% on the Moscow exchange following reports of the damage to its infrastructure.
Maryana Lazaricheva, head of equity research at T-Investments, said the risks extended beyond temporary service outages and potential revenue losses in individual business segments. The company’s extensive business-to-business client base could also face disruptions.
Yandex may be able to redirect some workloads to its other data centres, helping it maintain operations. However, Lazaricheva warned that continued attacks could undermine this option and lead to more serious consequences.
Yandex operates five data centres, two of which have now been targeted. The Sasovo facility is particularly important to its AI development efforts because it houses two of the three supercomputers used to train its YandexGPT model, built around Nvidia A100 chips.
The company has not confirmed whether those supercomputers were damaged in Thursday’s attack.
Credits: Al Jazeera
Russia and Ukraine Expand Attacks on Digital Infrastructure
The strikes form part of a broader escalation in attacks on economic infrastructure during the war, which has continued for more than four years.
Both countries have increasingly targeted facilities beyond traditional military objectives, including refineries, energy infrastructure, ports, oil and grain vessels, e-commerce warehouses and data centres.
Ukraine has previously attacked facilities operated by Russian e-commerce companies Wildberries and Ozon, while Russia has targeted comparable infrastructure in Ukraine. Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centres and telecommunications networks have also forced some facilities to suspend operations and caused temporary internet outages affecting approximately 100,000 households in one incident.
