UKRAINE TAKES AIM AT RUSSIA’S DIGITAL NERVE CENTRE AS SECOND YANDEX DATA HUB IS HIT
October 9, 2026
Russian technology giant Yandex has reported a second drone attack on one of its data centres in two days, after several modules at its facility in the Kaluga region were damaged and completely disabled, raising fresh concerns about the vulnerability of Russia’s digital infrastructure amid the escalating war with Ukraine.
The company said on Friday that the strike on its Kaluga data centre, southwest of Moscow, had damaged part of the facility and warned that some of its services could face disruptions. No casualties were reported in connection with the attack on the data centre.
The latest incident followed a more serious strike on Thursday against Yandex’s data centre in Sasovo, in the Ryazan region southeast of Moscow. The attack triggered a fire and forced the facility to suspend operations. The site houses tens of thousands of servers, including two of the three supercomputers Yandex uses to develop its artificial intelligence models. The company is still assessing the damage and has not confirmed whether the affected equipment can be restored.
Yandex, frequently described as Russia’s equivalent of Google, plays a major role in the country’s digital economy. Its services include internet search, navigation, music and video streaming, grocery delivery, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. The company said the attacks had struck at the core of its operations and that it was working to maintain services for millions of users and hundreds of thousands of business clients.
The strikes also unsettled investors, with Yandex shares falling 3.75 per cent on the Moscow exchange. Analysts warned that continued attacks could cause wider service interruptions and financial losses, particularly if the company’s remaining data centres are unable to absorb the displaced workloads.
The attacks form part of a widening campaign against economic and technological infrastructure on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Russia has intensified strikes on Ukrainian data centres and telecommunications facilities in recent weeks, including targets in Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described his country’s response as reciprocal, saying Ukraine is responding to Russian attacks on its digital infrastructure. He did not disclose operational details.
Yandex operates five data centres, and two have now been hit. The company’s ability to shift workloads to other facilities may help limit immediate disruption, but further strikes could reduce that flexibility and threaten services on which businesses and ordinary Russians increasingly depend.
The attacks mark a significant expansion of the conflict’s reach into the infrastructure supporting artificial intelligence, cloud computing and everyday digital services, underscoring how the war is increasingly affecting economic systems beyond conventional military and energy targets.
