Drone strikes have damaged three of the five major data centres operated by Russian technology company Yandex, shutting down facilities and disrupting online services used by businesses across Russia.
Yandex, frequently compared with Google, runs search, navigation and entertainment platforms alongside Yandex Cloud and the YandexGPT artificial intelligence model.
The first strike hit Sasovo in Russia's Ryazan region overnight on October 7–8. Yandex said the attack caused serious damage and shut the site down. Reuters reported that a fire broke out.
The facility housed tens of thousands of servers. Yandex said in 2021 it housed two of the company's three Nvidia-powered supercomputers, used to train AI models including YandexGPT. The company has not confirmed whether those machines were damaged.
On October 9, drones struck Yandex's data centre in Kaluga, southwest of Moscow, damaging part of its infrastructure and disrupting operations. Yandex reported no injuries at either facility.
A third strike overnight on October 10–11 damaged the Vladimir data centre, forcing its complete shutdown. Yandex reported further service outages but no injuries.
The disruption affected businesses relying on Yandex Cloud. Alexander Savitsky, operator of dating app Pulse, told Reuters on October 9 that its 8,000 users could not access the service and that a backup database was inaccessible. He said data loss had not been confirmed.
The strikes follow Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centres and telecommunications infrastructure.
"We always respond in mirror-like fashion," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on October 8. He described the Kaluga strike the following day as a retaliatory operation.
Yandex has not disclosed the full extent of the damage. The company says restoration times remain uncertain and has not confirmed whether its AI supercomputers were affected.
