Drone Strikes Hit Third Yandex Data Center, Disrupting Russian Services

· Cybersecurity · Russia

Russian cloud and internet giant Yandex confirmed that drone attacks damaged three of its data centers, forcing the company to shut down two facilities and partially disable a third. A third data center was reportedly hit by Ukrainian drones over the weekend, causing further disruption to cloud services, payments, deliveries and other online services across Russia. Users reported losing access to cloud files as the outages rippled through the company's consumer and business offerings. The strikes highlight the growing vulnerability of concentrated commercial digital infrastructure to physical attacks in conflict zones, and they show how damage to a handful of facilities can cascade into broad service outages affecting millions of users who depend on a single provider. Yandex has said the affected data centers were damaged and it has had to curtail operations at the sites.

Why it matters：It demonstrates the physical fragility of concentrated cloud infrastructure, a risk that affects service continuity and data resilience for providers globally.

Key points

  • Three Yandex data centers were damaged; two were shut down and one partially disabled.
  • The most recent strike on a third data center was attributed to Ukrainian drones.
  • Outages disrupted cloud services, payments, deliveries and other online offerings across Russia.

Sources (original reporting)

More stories from this day