Russian Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev stated today that the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Digital Development are discussing measures to protect data centers from the threat of Ukrainian suicide drones.
This statement followed Yandex's announcement yesterday that its data center in Vladimir province, east of Moscow, had sustained damage and ceased operations after a UAV attack. No injuries were reported, and the group is working to restore services.
Moment the Yandex data center in Vladimir region was hit on 11/10. Video: X/Exilenova_plus.
This marks the third attack on Yandex data centers within four days.
On 8/10, Ukrainian UAVs struck a facility in Sasovo, Ryazan province, causing a fire and reportedly forcing the center to completely shut down. Yandex has not yet determined when equipment there will be restored.
A day later, Yandex's facility in Kaluga province was attacked, causing a partial system shutdown. Kaluga Governor Vladislav Shapsha reported that air defense forces shot down 26 UAVs over the province; however, some still crashed into the data center, injuring 9 people.
The attacks disrupted Yandex Go ride-hailing services in numerous Russian cities, with similar interruptions noted in Serbia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Armenia. The Yandex Pro application for drivers and delivery personnel also experienced issues, and some employees could not access the internal support system. The group's smart home services were also affected.
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Yandex data center in Sasovo caught fire after being hit on 8/10. Photo: Reuters.
The network of data centers serves as critical infrastructure for maintaining Yandex platform services. On 10/10, the Russian group updated its terms of use to include UAV and missile attacks as force majeure events, which could exempt it from certain contractual obligations.
These strikes coincide with Ukraine's intensified campaign of long-range UAV attacks targeting infrastructure within Russian territory. Kyiv characterized the attacks on Yandex data centers as a proportionate response to Moscow's strikes on Ukrainian data centers in September.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin inspects a self-driving car developed by Yandex in Moscow in September 2017. Photo: AP.
Yandex is often compared to "the Russian version of Google", operating a search engine that commands approximately 70% of the country's web traffic, along with its YandexGPT artificial intelligence model, cloud services, ride-hailing, and food delivery. These services are widely used by businesses and residents in Russia and neighboring countries.
Yandex's data centers are also vital for the group's artificial intelligence development capabilities specifically, and for the broader field of AI.
Thanh Danh (According to TASS, Kyiv Independent, BNI Intelligence, BBC)
