Three Yandex data centres have been hit by Ukrainian drones in the space of four days, knocking out facilities that support some of Russia’s most widely used online services.
The attacks underscore how critical infrastructure has become a major target for both sides in the war. The attacks on Yandex data centres impacted Yandex itself as well its cloud computing customers, including the national rail service, a telecoms provider and media outlets.
The first strike hit Sasovo on 8 October, followed by Kaluga the next day and Vladimir on 11 October. Yandex said its Sasovo and Vladimir sites had been shut down completely, while several modules at Kaluga were put out of action. The damage has caused problems for services ranging from cloud computing to online payments and transport.
In a statement published on 9 October, Yandex described its data centres as the “iron heart” of the company, acknowledging the widespread consequences of the attacks for its customers and the millions of people who rely on its services.
“Their operation is critical for services that have become part of people’s everyday lives,” the company said, adding that hundreds of thousands of businesses depend on its technology to take orders, serve customers and work with partners.
The first attack took place overnight on 7–8 October, when Ukrainian drones struck Yandex’s data centre in Sasovo, in Russia’s Ryazan region. A fire broke out at the facility, which Yandex confirmed had suffered serious damage and been completely shut down.
The Sasovo site also houses two of Yandex’s three supercomputers, which the company uses to train its AI models. It’s not yet clear whether either machine was damaged, or how long they might remain out of action.
The attack also disrupted services operated by organisations relying on Yandex’s infrastructure, including Russian Railways, telecommunications provider MegaFon, and several media outlets, according to the Financial Times.
A second strike followed on 9 October, targeting Yandex’s data centre in the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow. Several modules were reportedly rendered completely inoperable, prompting warnings of further service disruption.
Yandex said emergency services and technical specialists were working at both facilities and confirmed that no employees had been injured. However, the company acknowledged that it could not provide a timeline for restoring operations.
“We are continuing to assess the condition of our infrastructure,” Yandex said. “For now, it is very difficult to say when the equipment at the data centers will be back up and running.”
On 11 October, a third attack damaged Yandex’s data centre in Vladimir, east of Moscow, forcing another complete shutdown. In an updated statement, the company confirmed the attack and said no employees had been injured.
Yandex Cloud warned that its remaining infrastructure was operating under unstable conditions and advised customers to activate alternative disaster recovery arrangements.
Users across Russia reported problems accessing services including Yandex Go, its taxi-booking platform, Yandex Pay and its Alice AI assistant. Disruptions were also reported in neighbouring countries, including Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia.
The strikes represent an expansion of Ukraine’s campaign against Russian infrastructure, which has previously focused heavily on oil refineries, fuel depots, and military logistics networks.
The strikes follow weeks of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s own digital infrastructure. According to conflict-monitoring organisation ACLED, Russian forces have increasingly targeted data centres and telecommunications networks since mid-September, disrupting internet access for approximately 100,000 households in the Kyiv region. Repeated strikes also forced Ukrainian provider Cosmonova to cease operations at its data centre, while Kyiv’s Parkovyi facility was knocked offline after suffering critical damage.
The damage goes well beyond temporary website outages. By hitting Yandex’s data centres, Ukraine has shown how a handful of strikes can disrupt services used by millions of people, while potentially putting Russia’s AI development work at risk.
There are also questions about the potential consequences for Russia’s online influence operations.
Following the strikes, Marijn Markus, an AI lead and managing data scientist, highlighted that Cloudflare traffic data showed a sharp decline in automated activity originating from Yandex’s network. In a LinkedIn post, Markus suggested the disruption could have affected Russian online influence campaigns, pointing to an apparent decline in activity surrounding Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party.
However, no independently verified evidence shows that the strikes disabled Kremlin-linked disinformation operations or directly caused changes in political activity on social media.
