Ukrainian drone strikes disrupt Yandex services and AI infrastructure
Ukrainian drone strikes damaged two of Yandex’s five data centres in Russia, disrupting some of the tech company’s online services and putting pressure on infrastructure used to train its AI model. Ukraine said the attacks were a response to Russian strikes that have disrupted data centres and communications in Ukraine.
The strikes hit facilities in the Sasovo and Kaluga regions on 8 and 9 October. Sasovo houses two of Yandex’s three supercomputers used to train YandexGPT; the Kaluga site is the company’s largest data centre. Yandex said no employees were injured, while users reported problems with services including video streaming, banking and railways. The attacks come amid an expanding drone campaign by both sides against infrastructure.
- Ukrainian drones damaged two of Yandex’s five Russian data centres.
- The Sasovo site houses two supercomputers used to train YandexGPT.
- Yandex reported service disruptions but no employee injuries.
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Yandex is Russia's largest internet company, providing search engines, video streaming, banking and railway booking services to millions of users. Two of its five data centres were struck by drones on 8 and 9 October, disrupting access to some of these services.
The attacked facilities in Sasovo and Kaluga house significant computing infrastructure, including supercomputers used to develop Yandex's artificial intelligence systems. Damaging this infrastructure hampers the company's ability to train and maintain AI technology and run its online services.
Ukraine says it launched the attacks in response to Russian strikes against its own data centres and communications systems. Both countries are engaged in an escalating campaign to damage each other's digital infrastructure as part of the ongoing conflict.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Ukraine argues these strikes are justified retaliation for Russia's sustained campaign against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, including data centres and communications networks. From Ukraine's perspective, Yandex's facilities represent legitimate targets because they support Russian military capability and technological advantage; as the defending nation in an existential conflict, Ukraine claims the right to degrade Russian infrastructure used to advance the invasion, framing this as proportionate asymmetric warfare against a larger military power.
The case against
Critics contend that striking civilian tech infrastructure violates principles of distinction in humanitarian law and causes collateral harm to ordinary people dependent on banking, transport and communications services. From this perspective, even if such facilities have some war-support function, expanding drone campaigns against civilian infrastructure risks normalising the targeting of non-military sectors and creates a destructive escalation cycle where infrastructure damage becomes an end in itself rather than advancing any genuine strategic objective for either side.
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Originally published by Ars Technica as “Ukraine’s drones knock out AI data center belonging to “Russia’s Google””.