Yandex data centers hit by series of drone strikes in Russia

Yandex drone attack data center digital infrastructure artificial intelligence

Russian technology giant Yandex has suffered a series of drone strikes targeting its critical digital infrastructure over a four-day period. The most recent attack occurred on October 11 in Vladimir, east of Moscow, which forced the complete shutdown of a major data center. This incident follows two prior strikes: one on October 8 against the Sasovo facility in the Ryazan region, and another on October 9 against a facility in the Kaluga region.

The Sasovo strike was particularly significant as the facility housed two of the three supercomputers used by Yandex to develop and train its artificial intelligence models. The Kaluga attack partially disabled several infrastructure modules. The Vladimir strike also caused local utility disruptions, with officials reporting that two transformer substations were disabled, affecting electricity for approximately 5,000 residents.

The attacks have caused widespread service disruptions across Russia and neighboring countries, impacting Yandex Go (taxi and delivery), Yandex Music, Yandex Cloud, and various smart-home products. Yandex Cloud has moved to manual management of computing and disk quotas to stabilize its platform. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy characterized the strikes as a response to Russian attacks on Ukraine's own digital infrastructure.

Entities

Alexander Avdeev · Kaluga · Kyiv · Russia · Russian Ministry of Defense · Ryazan · Samara · Sasovo · Ukraine · Ukrainian Air Force · Vitali Klitschko · Vladimir

Claims

What the coverage asserts, and how many sources carry each claim.

[● 9 SOURCES] A second facility in the Kaluga region was struck by drones, taking part of its infrastructure out of service. dailydigest.ie · quintafuerza.mx · www.sd.rs · dijitaliyidir.com · canal44.com · +3 more
[● 2 SOURCES] Yandex shares fell by as much as 3.4% on October 8 and 4.2% on October 9. www.sd.rs · dijitaliyidir.com
[● 10 SOURCES] Two of Yandex's five data centres were damaged by Ukrainian drone attacks. dailydigest.ie · quintafuerza.mx · www.sd.rs · dijitaliyidir.com · canal44.com · +3 more
[● 5 SOURCES] The Sasovo facility houses two of the three supercomputers used for artificial intelligence development. quintafuerza.mx · www.sd.rs · dijitaliyidir.com · canal44.com · unwire.hk
[● 8 SOURCES] The Sasovo facility in the Ryazan region was seriously damaged and operations were completely suspended. dailydigest.ie · quintafuerza.mx · www.sd.rs · dijitaliyidir.com · canal44.com · +3 more
[● 3 SOURCES] Ukrainian forces used FP-1 one-way attack drones to strike the Yandex data centres. quintafuerza.mx · canal44.com · unwire.hk
[● 2 SOURCES] The company has reached agreements with other cloud providers to help customers migrate data. quintafuerza.mx · unwire.hk
[● 4 SOURCES] Russian aerial strikes were recorded across multiple locations in Ukraine.
[● 2 SOURCES] Russia deployed 160 drones during an overnight attack on October 10.
[○ 1 SOURCE] At least eight people, including three children, were killed in strikes on Zaporizhzhia.
[● 2 SOURCES] The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have destroyed 560 Ukrainian drones. ensegundos.com.pa
[● 2 SOURCES] Ukrainian air defenses intercepted or suppressed 117 drones by 9:00 a.m. Kyiv time.