Story perspectives

Ukrainian drones cripple Yandex Cloud, cutting capacity to 30%

By Drooid · Oct 22, 2026, 10:48 AM UTC · How we work

Center

AI Progress Stalled

Ukrainian drones struck Yandex, Sberbank and VKontakte data centers across Russia between Oct. 8 and Oct. 18, 2026, causing damage.
Analysts say the damage cut Yandex Cloud capacity to about 30%, jeopardizing three supercomputers and slowing Russia’s AI progress.
NetBlocks reported Yandex Cloud connectivity fell to roughly 30%, affecting 84 cloud services.
Eurasia Group’s Nick Reiners warned Russia’s air-defence cannot protect its data centres, leaving them vulnerable.

Left

Court Sessions Cancelled

Ukrainian drones hit Yandex, Sberbank and VKontakte data centres across Russia from 8 October to 18 October 2026, causing damage.
The attacks halted online court hearings and cut Russian-linked propaganda messages by roughly 84 percent.
Courts in Sverdlovsk, Smolensk, Tula, Kostroma, Ivanovo and Yaroslavl oblasts cancelled scheduled online sessions after the Yandex outage.
Satellite imagery showed fires and damage to five of nine buildings at the Vladimir Yandex data centre following the 11 October strike.

Blindspot

The outages cut Yandex Cloud capacity to roughly 30% of normal, and experts say repairs may take months or years, delaying Russia’s AI progress.
Within this story's sources, this angle appears mainly in Center-leaning coverage and receives less attention in Left-leaning coverage.

1 of 3

AI Progress Stalled

Ukrainian drones struck Yandex, Sberbank and VKontakte data centers across Russia between Oct. 8 and Oct. 18, 2026, causing damage.
Analysts say the damage cut Yandex Cloud capacity to about 30%, jeopardizing three supercomputers and slowing Russia’s AI progress.
NetBlocks reported Yandex Cloud connectivity fell to roughly 30%, affecting 84 cloud services.
Eurasia Group’s Nick Reiners warned Russia’s air-defence cannot protect its data centres, leaving them vulnerable.

1 / 3