Yandex data centres hit by Ukrainian drone attacks, services disrupted
Two of Yandex's five data centres were damaged by Ukrainian drone strikes, prompting the company to work around the clock to restore services amid ongoing infrastructure attacks in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Yandex, Russia's leading internet services provider, said its data centre in Sasovo, Ryazan region, suffered serious damage after a drone attack overnight into Thursday, forcing a complete suspension of operations. A second facility in Kaluga, southwest of Moscow, was also hit on Friday, with part of its infrastructure taken out of service.
The company described its data centres as critical for the normal operation of its services and said it could not predict when full functionality would be restored. Yandex added that staff were working day and night to keep services running, but the task was complex.
Yandex reported no injuries among its employees, though the Kaluga regional governor said nine people were injured in a separate drone attack on the city’s infrastructure. The extent of the disruption remains unclear; the firm told state news agency TASS that some AI chatbot functions were temporarily unavailable and that smart-home devices might also be affected.
The Sasovo site houses two of three supercomputers used to develop Yandex's AI model, while the Kaluga centre is one of Russia's largest, covering 130,000 square metres and consuming electricity comparable to that used by 220,000 UK households. Ukraine's defence ministry confirmed the attacks, stating they could compel Russia to allocate resources to repair the damaged capacity.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strikes were a response to recent Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centres, part of a broader pattern of infrastructure targeting by both sides in the ongoing war.