Ukrainian drone strikes cripple major Russian data centers, disrupting services

Ukraine launched a series of drone attacks in early October that damaged three Yandex data centers, a Sberbank computing hub and a VKontakte facility in Russia. The strikes knocked out cloud services used for banking, e-commerce, geolocation, ride-hailing and artificial-intelligence applications, prompting reports of interrupted payments, cancelled court sessions and reduced access to online platforms.

"This effectively sets Russia far behind in the AI race," said Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society activist group.

"The problem in Russia is that they’ve got to cover a big country with air defense and they don’t have enough," noted Nick Reiners, senior geotechnology analyst at Eurasia Group.

"Because all the infrastructure and all the data is located inside Russia, it’s relatively easier to take down," Reiners added.

Yandex, Russia's leading internet company, confirmed that most cloud services were restored within days by shifting workloads to other domestic centers, but acknowledged that damage to its supercomputers – ranked among the world’s top 500 – could be extensive. Analysts warned that repairing the high-end hardware may take months or longer, especially given sanctions on advanced chips.

The attacks follow a pattern of targeting critical infrastructure on both sides of the conflict. Russian missiles have repeatedly struck Ukraine's power grid, while Ukrainian drones have previously hit Russian oil refineries and logistics warehouses. The recent focus on data centers highlights their vulnerability, as relatively small explosive payloads can cause significant disruption to server farms.

Local users reported practical impacts: a Moscow resident could not retrieve an online order from Yandex Market, and a taxi driver said his ride-hailing app stopped connecting with passengers. The disruptions have also affected the Russian judicial system, with some arbitration courts forced to postpone sessions due to loss of database access.

Experts suggest the strikes may push Russian firms to relocate data storage abroad, potentially easing the government's push for a sovereign internet. However, the immediate effect is a notable setback for Russia's AI development ambitions, which already lag behind the United States and China.