Ukraine Hits Three Yandex Data Centers, Exposing Russia’s Digital Weakness
Ukrainian drones hit three Yandex data centers, disrupting Russian services and exposing centralization risks, with repairs potentially taking six months.
Summary
Russia’s late September drone campaign against Ukrainian data centers and mobile networks temporarily disrupted internet and phone service for up to 100,000 Kyiv households, amid missile and jet-powered drone attacks on power, transport and apartment blocks. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described Ukraine’s retaliation as symmetrical. On October 8, a drone damaged Yandex’s Sasovo center southeast of Moscow, home to two of three Nvidia A100-based supercomputers used for YandexGPT: Chervonenkis, rated at 29.42 petaflops and ranked 101st in the Top 500, and Lyapunov, rated at 20.03 petaflops and ranked 161st. Their damage remains unclear. On October 9, Ukraine knocked out Yandex’s Kaluga center southwest of Moscow, one of Russia’s largest at 63 megawatts. On October 11, Yandex suspended its Vladimir center east of Moscow, which houses Galushkin, rated at 20.64 petaflops and ranked 134th.
The strikes reportedly disrupted payments, banking, email, ecommerce, streaming, ride-hailing, food delivery, navigation and maps, while affecting Yandex Cloud customers including major grocery and fast-food chains and an appliance retailer. Yandex controls about 70 percent of Russian search. Pro-Kremlin bloggers Ratio Militaris and Artjockey, in posts translated by ChrisO_wiki, warned that Yandex’s concentrated infrastructure threatens Russia’s digital economy. The 2019 Sovereign Internet Law signed by Vladimir Putin, sanctions and insufficient capacity in Belarus and Kazakhstan impede foreign backups, while China would require legal changes to host key services and registries. Ukraine instead uses smaller centers, underground and foreign backups, plus free Microsoft and Amazon cloud support. AWS hosts more than 15 petabytes from over 60 Ukrainian government organizations and DTEK. An unnamed IT expert estimated Yandex replacement equipment could take six months.
Positives
- AWS hosts more than 15 petabytes of data for over 60 Ukrainian government organizations and private energy company DTEK.
- Microsoft and Amazon provide free cloud services that move crucial Ukrainian government systems into other parts of Europe.
- Ukraine’s smaller data centers, underground equipment and foreign backups provide greater resilience against sustained missile and drone attacks.
- All three retaliatory strikes occurred within four days, demonstrating Ukraine’s ability to reach major Yandex facilities around Moscow.
Risks & concerns
- Three Yandex facilities housing all three YandexGPT supercomputers were attacked, although the damage to Chervonenkis and Lyapunov remains unclear.
- Russian outages affected payments, banking, email, ecommerce, streaming, transport, food delivery, navigation and major Yandex Cloud customers.
- Yandex’s roughly 70 percent share of Russian search concentrates national digital services around infrastructure with few large nodes.
- Russia’s 2019 Sovereign Internet Law, international sanctions and limited regional capacity restrict options for building foreign backup infrastructure.
- Replacing damaged data center equipment could take up to six months, leaving Russian services exposed to further disruption.
- Russia’s initial attacks disrupted internet and mobile service for up to 100,000 Kyiv households.