GoKawiilUkrainian drones strike Yandex, Sberbank and VKontakte data centers in Russia
Between October 8 and 18, Ukrainian drone strikes hit five Russian data centers, including three Yandex facilities housing its top supercomputers, plus sites serving Sberbank and VKontakte. The attacks disrupted cloud services, banking, e-commerce and ride-hailing across Russia, following earlier Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centers that knocked out internet and TV broadcasts.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
Because Russia's digital sovereignty rules require data to stay within its borders, its infrastructure is more concentrated and exposed than Ukraine's, which spreads critical data across allied European servers, according to analyst Nick Reiners. Activist Mikhail Klimarev argues the loss of Yandex's supercomputers could set Russia back significantly in AI development, especially given sanctions limiting access to high-end Nvidia chips needed for repairs.
- Five Russian data centers tied to Yandex, Sberbank and VKontakte were hit by Ukrainian drones in October
- The strikes disrupted banking, cloud, e-commerce and ride-hailing services across Russia
- Russia's centralized data storage policy may make its digital infrastructure more vulnerable to such attacks than Ukraine's
Source: tech.slashdot.org, 2026-10-23
Published there as: “Ukraine Is Wiping Out Data Centers Across the Border”
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