Yandex said on Sunday that a drone attack damaged its data centre in the Vladimir region east of Moscow, forcing operations to a complete halt with no injuries reported. The company, often described as Russia's Google and deeply involved in the country's AI development, said some of its services are currently unavailable to users. The Associated Press reported the strike as a Ukrainian drone attack — the third Yandex facility taken out in four days.
What happened to the Yandex data centres?
Yandex said the Vladimir facility's infrastructure was damaged in a drone attack and its data centre had been completely shut down, Reuters reported, adding that no one was injured. The AP reported that the attack caused outages across Yandex services, leaving users in dozens of Russian cities — as well as in Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Armenia — unable to order taxis or access banking services, citing the Russian independent outlet Astra.
The Vladimir strike is the third in a rapid sequence:
- Thursday: a drone attack took a Yandex data centre offline in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow — the facility in Sasovo where, Reuters has reported, two of the three supercomputers used to develop Yandex's AI model are housed.
- Friday: Yandex said its data centre in the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, was struck by Ukrainian drones and partly put out of action.
- Sunday: the Vladimir-region facility completely shut down.
Reuters attributed the Friday and Thursday strikes to Ukrainian drones. For Sunday's Vladimir attack, Yandex itself confirmed only that a drone attack occurred; the AP reported it as a Ukrainian drone attack. No independent confirmation of the launch origin beyond the wire reporting was available at publication time.
Why are data centres being hit?
The strikes are part of a widening long-range aerial war running in parallel to the largely deadlocked front line, more than four and a half years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The AP noted that Ukraine's strikes on data centres follow Russian attacks on data hubs in Ukraine.
Data centres and telecom infrastructure have become regular targets on both sides: Russia has campaigned against Ukrainian energy and connectivity, while Ukraine has extended its strikes deep inside Russia — hitting refineries, depots, pipelines, and now the tech infrastructure underpinning Russia's AI and digital economy.
The AP reported Sunday's Vladimir strike as a Ukrainian drone attack; Yandex itself confirmed only a drone attack, and Reuters described the Friday and Thursday strikes as Ukrainian drone attacks. No additional independent confirmation of the strike's origin was available. This article was published on a Sunday; markets were closed, so no market snapshot box is carried.
