Full Breakdown
Ukrainian Drone Strikes Disable Three Yandex Data Centers
By Drooid · · How we work
Core Event: Ukrainian Drones Hit Yandex Facilities
In early October, Ukrainian drones damaged three Yandex data centers—Sasovo in Ryazan, Kaluga, and Vladimir. The Sasovo site was seriously damaged on the night of October 7-8, the Kaluga facility suffered module failures on October 9, and the Vladimir center went offline after the night of October 10-11. Yandex reported that Sasovo and Vladimir shut down completely, while several modules in Kaluga were unusable. The attacks forced Yandex Cloud into emergency mode and left more than 80 services, including the YandexGPT API, unavailable.
Background & Context
President Volodymyr Zelensky framed the strikes as “mirror-like” retaliation for Russian attacks on Ukrainian internet infrastructure. The Ukrainian campaign targets what it describes as “strategic technological infrastructure” used by Russian state and commercial entities.
Data & Statistics
- Three data centers disabled within four days.
- Two supercomputers (out of three that power Yandex’s AI models) were housed in the Sasovo and Vladimir sites; damage to the supercomputers has not been independently confirmed.
- Yandex estimates replacement of damaged server equipment could take up to six months.
- Cloud service prices rose 5 %–10 % on May 1 2026, a cumulative increase of 16.6 % over two years.
- The attacks disrupted services for roughly 64,000 Yandex Cloud customers across at least six countries.
Official Statements & Responses
Yandex’s service alert emphasized that the remaining resource configuration is unstable and urged customers to activate disaster-recovery plans. The governor of Vladimir region, Alexander Avdeyev, reported fires and the loss of two electricity substations serving 5,000 residents, and announced evacuations. Digital development minister Maksut Shadayev described the attacks as “unprecedented” for the company. President Zelensky warned that “there will simply be drones in Russia’s skies on a scale that has to be taken into account.”
Criticism & Opposition
Czech MEP Tomáš Zdechovský circulated charts suggesting a drop in Russian bot traffic after the strikes. Ilya Lozovsky of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project challenged those claims, noting that the data reflect only automated search-engine requests, not social-media bots, and that the chart was unsourced and contained errors. He concluded that the evidence “doesn’t prove that nothing happened” but also does not confirm a causal link.
Conflicting Reports & Gaps
- Bot-traffic impact: Zdechovský’s posts claim a collapse of Russian-linked bot activity, while Lozovsky argues the metrics are unrelated to propaganda bots.
- Supercomputer damage: Sources confirm the locations of Yandex’s three supercomputers, but no independent verification exists regarding physical damage.
- Data loss: Yandex has not disclosed whether any customer data stored in the affected centers was permanently lost.
Verbatim Quotes
- “There will simply be drones in Russia's skies on a scale that has to be taken into account,” — Zelensky.
- “We understand that for our users, clients, and partners, every outage means disrupted plans and the inability to do what was part of everyday life or work,” — Yandex.
- “All of this doesn’t prove that nothing happened. What it shows is that there’s no proof that anything happened,” — Ilya Lozovsky.
What’s Next
Yandex has scheduled its next status update for October 12 Moscow time and continues to advise customers to use alternative hosting solutions. Industry analysts anticipate continued shortages of server hardware, which could keep equipment prices elevated through the fourth quarter of 2026. The six-month replacement timeline suggests that full restoration may extend well into the next year.