Two Yandex Data Centers Hit Within 48 Hours as Russia and Ukraine Target Each Other's Civilian Digital Infrastructure

Within 48 hours, two of Russian tech giant Yandex's five data centers were struck by Ukrainian drones. According to a report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Yandex stated in an announcement that its data center in Sasovo, Ryazan Oblast, suffered "severe damage" from the drone strike, and operations had "completely stopped"; another data center in Kaluga, Kaluga Oblast, was struck on Friday morning, with some infrastructure "out of service." The company also acknowledged that it is currently "difficult to predict" when the facilities can be brought back online.

Yandex operates Russia's most widely used search engine, ride-hailing, and food delivery platforms, serving tens of millions in their daily lives. The BBC report noted that the company informed Russian state news agency TASS that certain AI chatbot functions were temporarily unavailable, smart home devices might also experience malfunctions, and no employees were injured in the attacks. The governor of Kaluga Oblast reported that drone strikes in the city had injured nine people.

Critical Facilities and AI R&D Directly Affected

Information previously disclosed by Yandex shows that the Kaluga data center covers approximately 130,000 square meters, with annual power consumption equivalent to that of 220,000 British households, making it one of Russia's largest data centers; the Sasovo data center houses two of the three supercomputers used to develop Yandex's AI models. Whether the two supercomputers survived the strikes remains unclear. This means that what has been targeted is not only the facilities supporting Russian civilian digital services, but also critical infrastructure directly tied to Russia's cutting-edge AI research and development.

A Chain of Mutual Strikes

Both Russia and Ukraine have placed each other's data centers within striking range. Ukraine's Ministry of Defense confirmed the above strikes against Russian data centers, stating that the attacks could "force Russia to divert resources to repairing damaged facilities." Ukrainian President Zelensky stated that Kyiv is responding to Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centers in a "mirror-like" manner.

Last month, a Russian drone struck a business center in Kyiv, killing four people, damaging a data center, and cutting off internet access for approximately 100,000 households in Kyiv and surrounding areas. The BBC report noted that some Ukrainian businesses have begun migrating data to facilities abroad.

Russia's stated justification is that these data centers are used by Ukrainian military intelligence agencies; Ukraine in turn accuses Russia of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure. This mutual recrimination constitutes an actual pattern: both sides treat each other's civilian digital infrastructure as a legitimate target, and cite descriptions of the other side's military-civilian dual use as counter-evidence for the legitimacy of their own strikes.

With winter approaching, Russia continues the pattern of strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure that has persisted since the full-scale invasion in 2022. Now, digital infrastructure has been incorporated into the targeting chains of both sides simultaneously—from internet outages affecting 100,000 households around Kyiv, to disruptions in search, ride-hailing, food delivery, and AI assistant services for Yandex users—the costs borne by civilians are manifesting along two mutually parallel paths.