A data centre operated by Russian technology and artificial intelligence firm Yandex has been shut down following a drone attack in the city of Vladimir, located east of Moscow. The company confirmed on Sunday that no injuries were reported at the facility.
Emergency responders arrived at the scene as Yandex evaluated the damage and worked toward restoring its systems. In a service alert posted to Telegram, the company stated that all operations at the Vladimir data centre had been completely suspended. Users were advised to activate disaster-recovery plans, as the platform continued to function in emergency mode.
“The remaining resource configuration is considered unstable,” Yandex said, warning that technical support communications might also be disrupted while teams assessed the full extent of the damage. Several of the company’s services were reported unavailable to users during the outage.
This incident marks the third attack on Yandex’s data centres in just one week, highlighting an escalating campaign against each nation’s technological infrastructure as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues. On Friday, the company reported that its data centre in the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, was struck by Ukrainian drones, rendering part of the facility inoperable. Prior to that, a Ukrainian attack disabled Yandex’s data hub in Sasovo, southeast of the capital, where two of the three supercomputers used to develop the company’s AI model are housed.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the strikes on Thursday, confirming Kyiv’s retaliation for attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. “We always respond in mirror-like fashion,” Zelenskyy said. “They have been hitting and continue to hit our data centres. We are responding. I can’t share all the details.”
Over the past month, Russia has also conducted strikes on several Ukrainian data centres and telecommunications facilities, including targets in central Kyiv, in what analysts view as an effort to disrupt the country’s connectivity and digital commerce.
Wow, three in one week? That’s an insane pace for infrastructure damage. Hope their recovery teams stay safe during this.
Is this really effective, or just another escalation? Hitting data centers doesn’t seem to change the frontline situation at all.
It’s scary how targeted these strikes are becoming. Tech infrastructure is no longer safe from direct military action.