Story perspectives

Ukrainian Drones Knock Out Yandex Services in Russia

By Drooid · Oct 18, 2026, 1:58 AM UTC · How we work

Center

Zelensky claims bot disruption

Ukrainian drones hit three Yandex data centers in Russia early October 2026, causing outages.
Volodymyr Zelensky said at the Warsaw Security Forum on Oct 12 the attacks cut Russian bot activity.
The strikes disabled Yandex supercomputers Chervonenkis, Lyapunov and Galushkin, forcing Cloud into emergency mode.
Outages halted Yandex Go and Pay services in Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Yandex FinTech said funds stayed safe after the Pay shutdown, though a user reported a loss of 1.5 million rubles.

Left

Yandex Pay loss

Ukrainian drones struck three Yandex data centers in Russia in early October 2026, causing widespread service outages.
A Yandex Pay user reported that 1.5 million rubles in personal savings vanished online after the data-center attacks.
Automated Yandex traffic nationwide dramatically plunged from 88.2% to 0.3% after the strikes.
Moscow taxi drivers said the Yandex Pro app stopped sending ride orders after Vladimir-region outage daily.

Blindspot

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the Warsaw Security Forum on Oct 12 that the drone strikes led to a decline in Russian bot activity on social-media platforms.
Within this story's sources, this angle appears mainly in Center-leaning coverage and receives less attention in Left-leaning coverage.

History

Historical Context

On 27 June 2017 the Russian-linked NotPetya ransomware hit Ukraine, crippling ministries, banks and the Chernobyl monitoring system and causing over $10 billion in global losses. The attack spurred NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to pledge stronger cyber-defence for Eastern Europe. A decade later, in October 2026 Ukrainian drones struck three Yandex data centres, forcing the firm’s cloud services into emergency mode.

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Zelensky claims bot disruption

Ukrainian drones hit three Yandex data centers in Russia early October 2026, causing outages.
Volodymyr Zelensky said at the Warsaw Security Forum on Oct 12 the attacks cut Russian bot activity.
The strikes disabled Yandex supercomputers Chervonenkis, Lyapunov and Galushkin, forcing Cloud into emergency mode.
Outages halted Yandex Go and Pay services in Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Yandex FinTech said funds stayed safe after the Pay shutdown, though a user reported a loss of 1.5 million rubles.

1 / 4