A Yandex data center in Russia was disabled by a drone attack following the second strike in two days on the technology company which is considered Russia’s version of Google. Video posted on social media purported to show the drone approaching the site in Kaluga, a region southwest of Moscow. Several data center modules were completely out of service because of the strike, Yandex told Newsweek in a statement.
"This may cause some Yandex services to experience disruptions," the statement said. "We are currently assessing the full extent of the damage." It follows a drone attack on a separate Yandex facility in the region of Ryazan, located southeast of Moscow on Thursday. Kyiv has not publicly confirmed responsibility for the attacks, but they could signal a new front for the war following Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centers.
One Russian military blogger said Friday that Russia was ill-prepared for a "data center war." Newsweek has contacted the Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries for comment. Yandex is Russia’s leading technology company whose search engine is the country’s answer to Google. The firm also runs YandexGPT, a leading generative AI model.
It said that its data center in Kaluga was hit on Friday and that emergency services and company specialists were working on site. "No one was injured," the statement added, "people's safety remains the top priority." Footage shared on social media shows a drone flying above the site. Russian authorities said that 26 drones were shot down over the region, but drones struck other parts of Kaluga, injuring nine people, according to regional governor Vladislav Shapsha, who reported damage to houses in two districts.
The attacks come only a day after drones hit a Yandex center in the Sasovo district of the Ryazan region. A critical part of Russia’s digital infrastructure, the complex hosts thousands of servers and supports Yandex's services and cloud computing operations for businesses across the country. The facility also shares the site of the sanctioned Sasta factory, which makes equipment used by Russia's military.
Yandex told Newsweek: "At this stage, we cannot confirm whether the equipment at our Sasovo data center can be restored," in a statement which added, it was "still assessing the extent of the damage to our infrastructure." The strikes point to Ukraine deciding to carry out like-for-like responses to the strikes Russia carried out on data centers and internet exchanges in Kyiv last month. Using Geran-5 jet-powered drones, Russia destroyed centers which caused outages across the Kyiv region on September 25, forcing some firms to move data from damaged servers to facilities abroad. The Russian military blogger Artjockey posted on Telegram on Friday how Ukraine had prepared for its digital sector to be targeted while Russia had not.
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