Ukrainian drones hit two Yandex data centers in Russia

In short: Ukrainian drone strikes damaged two Yandex data centers in Russia, and Yandex said some of its online services were disrupted.

What happened

Ukrainian drones struck Yandex data centers in the Sasovo and Kaluga regions on October 8 and October 9, according to Reuters. Yandex is often called “Russia’s Google” because it runs Russia’s most-used search engine.

Yandex said no employees were hurt. It also acknowledged disruptions to some services. Users reported trouble reaching a mix of Russian websites and apps, including streaming, banking, and other everyday services, according to Reuters and Meduza.

One of the damaged sites, the Sasovo data center, houses two of Yandex’s three supercomputers used to train its YandexGPT AI model, Reuters reported. A data center is like a giant warehouse full of computers that keep internet services running. Training an AI model is like sending a student through long, repeated lessons, and it needs a lot of computer power.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the strikes were a “symmetrical response” to Russia’s recent drone attacks that have targeted Ukraine’s data centers and disrupted mobile and internet service for many people. Reuters also reported that the Ukrainian company Firepoint said its FP-1 one-way attack drones were involved in the Kaluga strike.

Why it matters

These attacks show that data centers are increasingly being treated as wartime targets, not just military bases or power stations. For regular people, that can mean everyday digital services, from messaging to payments, stop working when the computers behind them are damaged.

Source: Arstechnica