Ukrainian Drones Damage Two Yandex Data Centres

Russian technology giant Yandex says two of its five data centres have been damaged by Ukrainian drone strikes, disrupting operations and raising uncertainty over when its services will return to normal.

Two facilities hit in drone attacks

Yandex, often described as Russia’s equivalent of Google, operates the country’s leading search engine alongside popular taxi and food delivery apps used by millions of people. The company said its data centre in Sasovo, in the Ryazan region, suffered serious damage during an overnight drone attack on Thursday, forcing operations at the facility to stop completely. A second facility in Kaluga, south-west of Moscow, was struck on Friday morning, leaving part of its infrastructure out of service.

Yandex warns of service disruptions

Yandex said its data centres are essential to keeping its services operational and warned that it was difficult to predict when the affected facilities would be restored. The company said its teams were working around the clock to maintain services but acknowledged that the situation was challenging. No Yandex employees were injured in the attacks, according to the company. However, the governor of Kaluga said nine people were injured in a drone strike targeting infrastructure in the region.

AI tools and smart devices affected

The full extent of the disruption remains unclear. Yandex told Russia’s state news agency Tass that some functions of its artificial intelligence chatbot had temporarily become unavailable. The company also warned that its smart home devices could experience problems. Yandex previously described its Kaluga data centre as one of Russia’s largest, covering 130,000 square metres and using as much electricity annually as 220,000 households in the United Kingdom. Its Sasovo facility houses two of the three supercomputers used to develop the company’s AI model. It remains unclear whether the machines survived the strike.

Ukraine confirms attacks on data centres

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Ukraine’s defence ministry confirmed the attacks, saying they could force Russia to redirect resources towards repairing damaged infrastructure. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strikes were a response to weeks of Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centres, describing Kyiv’s approach as “mirror-like”. Both countries have intensified attacks on infrastructure in recent months as the war continues. Kyiv says its strikes target revenue sources supporting Moscow’s military campaign and could place additional pressure on Russian resources.

Russian strikes disrupt Ukrainian internet

Last month, a Russian drone struck a business centre in Kyiv, killing four people and damaging a data centre. The attacks also left about 100,000 households in Kyiv and the surrounding region without internet access. Some Ukrainian businesses have begun transferring data from damaged servers to facilities overseas to reduce the impact of further attacks. Moscow has defended its strikes by claiming that Ukrainian data centres are used by military intelligence. Ukraine, however, accuses Russia of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure. Russia has also increased attacks on energy facilities ahead of winter, continuing a pattern seen during previous years of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022.