Ukraine strikes shut Yandex data centers, damaged a third

Lacking credible proof that Ukrainian strikes on Yandex servers starting on Oct. 8 took Russian propaganda bots offline, we leave this claim unrated.

Ukraine has severely damaged three of Yandex’s six data centres in the past week, wreaking havoc in a country whose tech ecosystem is centred on one vast, state-aligned company. Launched as a search engine in 1997, Yandex has become Moscow’s answer to Google, Uber, Amazon and OpenAI rolled into one. Thousands of businesses depend on its infrastructure, meaning the strikes have hit not only Yandex’s services but reams of unrelated companies.

The Russian military hit a data center in Kyiv and other telecommunications sites, while Ukraine struck back by damaging three major data centers operated by the technology giant Yandex, often referred to as Russia’s Google, and a data center run by Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank.

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Did Ukrainian strikes on Yandex silence Russian bots? The evidence doesn’t show it, and shrinking data access makes it harder to check.

In barely four days, Ukraine managed completely to disable two major data centres and damage a third, forcing Yandex to redistribute resources and manage several emergencies simultaneously.

Since late September, Russian strikes ... attacks a “forced digital detox.” In Kyiv, repeated hits on data centers knocked media outlets offline and disrupted internet providers....

In a statement posted on Friday, Yandex said that operations at its Sasovo facility were “completely halted” while part of the infrastructure in Kaluga was “disabled.” The Vladimir facility, meanwhile, was taken completely offline on Sunday, according to the company. “Yandex teams are working around the clock to ensure our services remain operational and to help those affected by the incident,” the company said after the two initial strikes.

Ukrainian forces struck Russian data center operator Yandex in October, causing a dramatic decrease in bot activity across global social media platforms and reducing online disinformation campaigns.