Ukrainian drones damaged a Yandex data center in Vladimir, forcing a complete shutdown. This marks the third attack on the Russian tech giant's facilities in four days, disrupting services across Russia and neighboring countries.
Ukraine has struck a third Yandex data center in four days, forcing the Russian technology company to suspend operations at a facility near Moscow. The attack on the site in Vladimir, located east of the capital, occurred on Sunday, October 11, according to a company statement on Telegram. Yandex confirmed that no one was injured but stated that operations had been "completely suspended."
The strike in Vladimir followed attacks on two other Yandex facilities earlier in the week. On Thursday, October 8, drones hit a data center in Sasovo, in the Ryazan region, causing a fire and forcing a full shutdown. On Friday, October 9, Ukrainian drones struck a major facility in Kaluga, southwest of Moscow, disabling several hardware modules.
According to SOFX, the Vladimir hub houses Galushkin, one of Yandex’s three AI-training supercomputers. The Sasovo site contained the other two supercomputers, Lyapunov and Chervonenkis. With all three sites struck within four days, every location running the company’s AI-training hardware has been targeted. Reuters reported that the machines are built on Nvidia A100 processors and power YandexGPT, a leading large language model in Russia. Yandex has not confirmed whether the supercomputers themselves were damaged.
The outages have rippled across consumer and enterprise services. According to Kyiv Post, more than 80 digital services went offline across Russia and neighboring countries. Users in Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Armenia reported inability to book taxis via Yandex Go or access banking services, according to Russian independent news outlet Astra.
Specific services affected include:
Cloudflare reported that bot traffic from the Yandex network plummeted to 0.4% of recent peaks. NetBlocks indicated that Yandex Cloud network traffic fell to 30%, while Yandex LLC traffic dropped to 63%. Yandex warned that its remaining resource configuration was "unstable" and advised customers to activate disaster-recovery plans.
The strikes coincide with diplomatic tensions involving the United States. On Saturday, US President Donald Trump stated it was time for Ukraine to get a new president, suggesting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had not done enough to end the war. "I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal because he could have made many deals and for some reason he never does," Trump said.
Zelenskyy responded by stating that Ukraine could hold elections if Russia agreed to a 60-day ceasefire. "Give us two months, 60 days off. Total ceasefire, 60 days, and we will organize elections," Zelenskyy said. He added that holding an election during the war would be unlawful under Ukrainian martial law and that security guarantees would be required.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha defended Zelenskyy, writing on X that the president "has the support of the Ukrainian people, and they have the right to decide. Statements from abroad only confirm that he is doing his job well."
Zelenskyy tied the Yandex strikes to Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. "We always respond in mirror-like fashion," he said on Thursday. Ukrainian officials stated the goal was to force Russia to divert resources to repair damage, noting that Russia has previously struck Ukrainian data centers, causing internet outages.
The attacks represent an escalation in the targeting of digital infrastructure. Yandex, often described as "Russia's Google," operates the country's most popular search engine and is heavily involved in AI development. The company’s corporate structure was reshaped by the war; its American depositary receipts were delisted from Nasdaq in 2022, and its Russian assets were spun off in 2024 to form Nebius Group, though the struck data centers belong to the Russian entity.
Russian officials reported additional violence elsewhere. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine said six people were injured in Russian attacks on the Dnipropetrovsk region. In Zaporizhzhia, local officials confirmed that at least 20 people, including four children, were killed in Russian attacks on Saturday. Separately, a Ukrainian drone strike in Russia’s Bryansk region killed one man and injured two women.
Sources
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.
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