Full Breakdown
Ukrainian Strikes on Yandex Data Centres and Claims of a Bot Activity Collapse
By Drooid · · How we work
Core Event: Strikes and Alleged Decline in Online Bot Activity
In early October 2026 Ukrainian drone attacks damaged three Yandex data centres in the Ryazan, Kaluga and Vladimir regions. Yandex confirmed that operations at the Vladimir facility were completely suspended and that the remaining infrastructure was unstable. Social-media observers noted a sharp fall in automated traffic from Yandex’s network and circulated a graph suggesting a drop in “online activity” around the German party Alternative for Germany (AfD) and other pro-conservative accounts.
Background & Context
Yandex, Russia’s equivalent of Google, provides cloud services, AI tools and web-crawling infrastructure used by many websites. The attacks follow previous Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centres and internet exchange points.
Data & Statistics
- Cloudflare Radar recorded an approximately 94 % reduction in automated traffic from Yandex’s network on the Sunday after the strikes, compared with the second half of September.
- The viral graph showed “activity” falling from roughly 6,000–7,000 to below 3,000, but it included a data point dated October 14—still in the future when the graph first appeared on October 11—and used uneven scaling that exaggerated the decline.
- The Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS) reports no measurable decline in Russian disinformation campaigns linked to the Yandex attacks.
Official Statements & Responses
- At the Warsaw Security Forum on October 12, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the strikes made it “a little easier to breathe on many social media platforms.”
- Yandex’s Telegram statement said the Vladimir centre’s infrastructure was damaged and operations there were “completely suspended.”
- Josef Holnburger, managing director of CeMAS, explained that the drop in Cloudflare-measured traffic reflects fewer generic automated requests (such as search-engine crawlers) and does not equate to a decline in political bots.
- Zelenskyy’s office later clarified that the president was referring to the “atmosphere on social media,” not quantitative bot counts.
Criticism & Opposition
CeMAS experts highlighted the lack of a disclosed data source, unclear methodology and the inclusion of future-dated points, arguing the graph is not a reliable indicator of bot activity. Analysts noted Cloudflare’s metrics capture all automated traffic, not the coordinated inauthentic behaviour tracked by disinformation monitors.
Conflicting Reports & Gaps
- Some European commentators cited a 56 % drop in AfD-related social-media activity, but no independent verification or transparent methodology has been provided.
- The graph’s claim of a sharp decline in “online activity” around the AfD and Reform UK lacks source attribution and mixes unrelated metrics, making the causal link to the Yandex strikes unsubstantiated.
- While Cloudflare data shows a steep fall in Yandex-originated traffic, it does not differentiate between benign crawlers and political influence bots, leaving a gap in evidence for any impact on election-related disinformation.
Verbatim Quotes
- “When we started responding to Russia's operation against our data centres and when our strikes reached Yandex data centres, it suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social media platforms,” — Volodymyr Zelenskyy
What’s Next
CeMAS will continue tracking Russian-originated disinformation. No formal investigation into the graph’s provenance has been announced, and future assessments will depend on the availability of transparent, platform-level data.
