Three of Yandex's six data centers in Russia have been struck by drones in the past week, according to The Record's report. Yandex says one site, in Vladimir, has "shut down completely," that its remaining infrastructure there is unstable, and that the platform is running in emergency mode. The outages have reportedly reached Yandex Cloud customers and consumer services such as email, taxi booking and payments.
The three strikes
- Sasovo, Ryazan region. Drones hit the site overnight on October 7–8, starting a fire. Yandex shut the facility down. The data center opened in 2014. Meduza reports it houses two of Yandex's three AI-training supercomputers.
- Kaluga. A strike on October 9 damaged part of the infrastructure. Yandex said no employees were hurt and emergency services were on site.
- Vladimir. A strike overnight on Sunday hit the facility that houses the Galushkin supercomputer, which The Record describes as among the most powerful in Russia.
Kommersant, as cited by The Record, puts the combined capacity of the three targeted sites at about 115 MW. Yandex has not said whether any supercomputers were damaged. It has also not given a timeline for recovery: in a Friday statement, the company said such a forecast for restoring data center equipment was "very difficult" to provide. In the same statement it called its data centers the "iron heart" of the company.
Who is affected
Yandex Cloud serves what the article describes as thousands of businesses. The company reported about 64,000 customers as of mid-2026 in its H1 2026 financial disclosures. That figure is its entire customer base, and Yandex has not said how many customers were hit by the outages.
Russia's internet watchdog, via Detector404, reported problems with Yandex email, taxi booking, food ordering and Yandex Pay. The Alice voice assistant and linked smart-home devices reportedly stopped working in some households. More than a dozen third-party services were also reported disrupted, including retailers, internet providers, an online psychotherapy service, fitness businesses and the Russian segment of TikTok.
After the latest strike, Yandex advised cloud customers to prepare recovery plans that do not depend solely on failing over between parts of Yandex Cloud's own infrastructure.
On Saturday, according to RBC, Yandex updated its terms of service to exclude liability for failing to meet contractual obligations because of drone strikes and other attacks. That change could limit what affected customers can claim in compensation.
Russian state media report that Yandex has reached agreements with Selectel, K2Cloud and VK Cloud to help customers migrate data and services more quickly.
Moscow's response
Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev called the attack "unprecedented." He said his ministry is working with the Defense Ministry on measures to improve security at Yandex facilities and that the two are discussing how to protect them.
A tit-for-tat over digital infrastructure
The Record reports that Ukraine carried out the strikes, citing President Volodymyr Zelensky's public acknowledgment of attacks on data centers in Russia and drone attribution in media reporting. Zelensky described them as retaliation for Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure: "We always respond in kind."
The Russian strikes he referred to came in late September. At least six Ukrainian data centers were damaged, including facilities run by MiroHost, Parkovy, Data Group, Utels and Pautina. Infrastructure belonging to Kyivstar and Ukrtelecom was also hit. Ukrainian officials said a strike on September 23 cut fixed-line internet for roughly 100,000 households in Kyiv and the surrounding region. Moscow claims Ukrainian data centers were supporting the armed forces.
