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# Ukrainian drones hit three Yandex data centers in four days
- URL: https://bullquill.com/ukraine-strikes-russian-data-centers-yandex/
- Published: 2026-10-22T10:18:10.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T14:29:46.000Z
- Description: Three Yandex data centers were hit in four days, taking down cloud, payment and AI services in Russia and beyond. Two weeks on, the fate of the company's AI supercomputers is still unknown.
- Author: Rowan Ashby
- Tags: Tech, Trending, Yandex, Ukraine, Russia, Data Centers, #lang-en, #tr-ukraine-strikes-russian-data-centers-yandex

## Key takeaways

- Ukrainian drones struck three Yandex data centers between October 8 and 11, 2026, in Sasovo (Ryazan region), Kaluga region and Vladimir, according to Yandex statements reported by Al Jazeera and The Associated Press.
- Outages hit Yandex Cloud, payments, ride-hailing, maps and the Alice voice assistant, and reached users in Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Georgia, according to AP, the outlet Astra and The Moscow Times.
- Sasovo housed two of Yandex's three AI supercomputers. Yandex has not disclosed their condition, and experts quoted by AP expect repairs to take months to years.
- Russia has struck at least a dozen Ukrainian data centers since late September, and Kyiv describes its campaign as a response in kind.

Ukrainian drones struck three Yandex data centers between October 8 and 11, 2026, in Sasovo, the Kaluga region and Vladimir. The attacks knocked out Yandex Cloud, payments, maps and the Alice assistant. Yandex has not disclosed the condition of the two AI supercomputers at Sasovo.

This article sets out which sites were hit, what stopped working, and what is still unknown about Yandex's supercomputers.

## Which Yandex data centers were hit?

The first strike came on October 8 in Sasovo, a town in the Ryazan region southeast of Moscow. Yandex said operations at the site had been completely halted and that no one was injured, [Meduza reported](https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/10/08/ukraine-strikes-yandex-data-center-housing-two-of-the-company-s-supercomputers?ref=bullquill.com). Yandex did not say where the drone came from. Russian independent outlets reported that the fire started on the grounds of a sanctioned machine-tool plant, Sasta, where the data center has occupied part of the former premises since 2014\. It is unclear whether the plant or the data center was the target.

On October 9 drones hit a Yandex facility in the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow. Yandex said part of it was put out of action, [according to Al Jazeera](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/9/ukraine-takes-aim-at-russias-ai-data-infrastructure?ref=bullquill.com). On October 11 a third strike shut down the company's data center in Vladimir, east of Moscow. In a Telegram service alert, Yandex said operations there "have been completely suspended" and that "the remaining resource configuration is considered unstable," [Al Jazeera reported](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/11/russias-yandex-says-data-centre-in-vladimir-shut-down-after-drone-attack?ref=bullquill.com).

The campaign then widened beyond Yandex. AP reports that a Sberbank data center and AI hub in Balakovo, Saratov region, was hit on October 14\. A data center serving the social network VKontakte near St. Petersburg was struck about four days later. Sberbank and VK both said their services kept running, according to the [Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW)](https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2026-10-19/data-centres-russia-consequences-ukrainian-drone-strikes?ref=bullquill.com) and the [Kyiv Independent](https://kyivindependent.com/why-russias-war-on-ukraines-data-centers-could-backfire-on-moscow/?ref=bullquill.com).

| Date (2026) | Site                                   | Operator | Reported status                            |
| ----------- | -------------------------------------- | -------- | ------------------------------------------ |
| Oct 8       | Sasovo, Ryazan region                  | Yandex   | Operations completely halted (Yandex)      |
| Oct 9       | Kaluga region                          | Yandex   | Partly put out of action (Yandex)          |
| Oct 11      | Vladimir                               | Yandex   | Operations completely suspended (Yandex)   |
| Oct 14      | Balakovo, Saratov region               | Sberbank | Hit; Sberbank says systems kept running    |
| Oct 18      | Leningrad region (St. Petersburg area) | VK       | Hit; VK says services remained operational |

*Sources: Yandex statements via Meduza and Al Jazeera; AP; OSW; Kyiv Independent.*

## What services went down?

Yandex runs about six data centers, AP and OSW report. The company had drilled for losing one, according to AP, but not three in four days. NetBlocks said connectivity to Yandex Cloud fell to around 30% of normal levels, [The Moscow Times reported](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/10/19/from-banking-to-taxis-ukraines-data-center-strikes-disrupt-everyday-life-in-russia-a94020?ref=bullquill.com), citing a Habr post that counted 84 affected cloud services. OSW puts Yandex Cloud's customer base at about 64,000, including large banks, retailers and IT firms.

According to AP, the outages hit:

- Cloud hosting used by major Russian companies and banks;
- Payments, online orders, e-commerce and ride-hailing;
- Alice (Alisa in Russian), Yandex's voice assistant, and its multimodal AI chatbots;
- Arbitration courts, which reportedly postponed hearings after losing database access.

The effects crossed borders. After the Vladimir strike, users in dozens of Russian cities and in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia could not order taxis or reach banking services, AP reported, citing the independent outlet Astra. The Moscow Times found Yandex Go was briefly unavailable in Tbilisi, Georgia. OSW notes that Yandex dominates many commercial tech services in Belarus, Central Asia and Serbia.

Yandex says it restored most key cloud services within days by moving workloads to its other Russian data centers, according to AP. It has not disclosed the full damage or given a timeline for full recovery.

## What happened to Yandex's AI supercomputers?

This is the biggest open question. Yandex uses three GPU supercomputers to develop its AI models, AP reports. Meduza reported that two of them, Chervonenkis and Lyapunov, sit in Sasovo and the third, Galushkin, in Vladimir. That means all three were at sites that were shut down.

| System       | GPUs (Yandex)          | Rmax, PFlop/s (TOP500) | TOP500 rank, Nov 2021 (Yandex) | TOP500 rank, June 2026 |
| ------------ | ---------------------- | ---------------------- | ------------------------------ | ---------------------- |
| Chervonenkis | 1,592 Nvidia A100 80GB | 21.53                  | 19                             | 101                    |
| Galushkin    | 1,088 Nvidia A100 80GB | 16.02                  | 36                             | 134                    |
| Lyapunov     | 1,096 Nvidia A100 40GB | 12.81                  | 40                             | 161                    |

*Sources:* [*Yandex supercomputers page*](https://yandex.com/supercomputers?ref=bullquill.com)*;* [*TOP500, June 2026 list*](https://top500.org/lists/top500/list/2026/06/?page=2&ref=bullquill.com)*. Data as of October 22, 2026.*

Yandex has not said whether the machines survived. In a statement reported by CNBC after the first strike, the company said it could not yet confirm whether equipment at Sasovo could be restored. The Russian science outlet T-Invariant said all three systems were likely severely affected, The Moscow Times reported.

Experts quoted by AP say fires likely damaged high-end chips, and most expect repairs to take months to years. "This effectively sets Russia far behind in the AI race," Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society, told AP. Connor Martin of the Council on Foreign Relations said Russia will struggle to replace Nvidia A100 chips because of Western export controls. OSW adds that no new Russian supercomputer has entered service since 2021.

What remains unconfirmed: how many GPUs were destroyed, whether any model training was lost, and whether Yandex has spare capacity elsewhere. Claims circulating online that Russian bot traffic collapsed after the strikes have not been independently tied to the outages.

## Russia's strikes on Ukrainian data centers

The Yandex attacks followed weeks of Russian strikes on Ukraine's digital infrastructure. On September 23, a strike damaged a Kyiv facility housing equipment of the provider UTELS, cutting internet access for about 100,000 households, the Kyiv Independent reported. OSW counts 10 data centers in Kyiv and one in Dnipro damaged on September 27, including Kyivstar and Ukrtelecom facilities. The Kyiv operator Parkovyi said on October 1 its site had stopped operating for good; it moved customer data to backups in the EU.

Russia's Defense Ministry said the Ukrainian data centers it targeted "provide for the processing and transmission of intelligence data" for Ukraine's armed forces, Meduza reported. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking after the Sasovo strike, said: "We always respond in mirror-like fashion."

## What it means

The strikes show how concentrated digital infrastructure creates single points of failure. Russia's data localization laws require companies to keep data inside the country, which limits off-site backups. Ukraine, by contrast, stores critical data on servers in allied European countries, AP notes. That helped Ukrainian providers recover faster.

For AI, the impact may outlast the outages. Yandex's GPUs were already years old, and sanctions make replacements costly and slow to source. If the supercomputers are badly damaged, Russia's leading commercial AI developer could lose much of its training capacity. Russian officials have discussed better protection: Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev said on October 12 that his ministry was talking with the Defense Ministry about it, the Kyiv Independent reported.

For background, see our coverage of the [latest Ukraine peace talks](https://bullquill.com/witkoff-putin-talks-ukraine-peace-proposal/), [AI server demand at Super Micro](https://bullquill.com/super-micro-preliminary-revenue-beat-ai-servers/), [the push past Nvidia CUDA](https://bullquill.com/google-torchtpu-amazon-torchneuron-nvidia-cuda-explained/) and [the US data center debate](https://bullquill.com/trump-data-center-community-dividend-proposal/).

## Frequently asked questions

### Which Yandex data centers were hit by drones?

Yandex facilities in Sasovo (Ryazan region) on October 8, the Kaluga region on October 9 and Vladimir on October 11, 2026\. Yandex said Sasovo and Vladimir were completely halted and Kaluga was partly put out of action, according to Meduza and Al Jazeera.

### Which Yandex services were affected?

According to AP and The Moscow Times, outages hit Yandex Cloud, payments, ride-hailing, e-commerce, the Alice voice assistant and AI chatbots. Users in Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Georgia also reported problems.

### Were Yandex's AI supercomputers destroyed?

That has not been confirmed. Meduza reported that two of Yandex's three supercomputers were in Sasovo and the third in Vladimir. Yandex has not disclosed their condition; experts quoted by AP expect repairs to take months to years.

### Has Russia attacked data centers in Ukraine?

Yes. Since late September 2026, Russian strikes have damaged data centers in Kyiv, Dnipro and Odesa, according to OSW and the Kyiv Independent. Ukrainian operators limited the damage by keeping backups in EU countries.

## Sources

- [AP via ABC News: Ukraine's strikes on Russian data centers disrupt key services and derail AI research (Oct 22, 2026)](https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/ukraines-strikes-russian-data-centers-disrupt-key-services-137466595?ref=bullquill.com)
- [AP via ABC News: Ukraine steps up strikes on Russia's tech infrastructure (Oct 11, 2026)](https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/ukraine-steps-strikes-russias-tech-infrastructure-damaging-data-137169844?ref=bullquill.com)
- [Al Jazeera: Ukraine takes aim at Russia's AI data infrastructure (Oct 9, 2026)](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/9/ukraine-takes-aim-at-russias-ai-data-infrastructure?ref=bullquill.com)
- [Al Jazeera: Russia's Yandex says data centre in Vladimir shut down after drone attack (Oct 11, 2026)](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/11/russias-yandex-says-data-centre-in-vladimir-shut-down-after-drone-attack?ref=bullquill.com)
- [Meduza: Ukraine strikes Yandex data center housing two of the company's supercomputers (Oct 8, 2026)](https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/10/08/ukraine-strikes-yandex-data-center-housing-two-of-the-company-s-supercomputers?ref=bullquill.com)
- [CNBC: Russia's Yandex halts operations at data center after drone strike](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/08/russia-yandex-ukraine-drone-strike-data-center.html?ref=bullquill.com)
- [The Moscow Times: From banking to taxis, Ukraine's data center strikes disrupt everyday life in Russia (Oct 19, 2026)](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/10/19/from-banking-to-taxis-ukraines-data-center-strikes-disrupt-everyday-life-in-russia-a94020?ref=bullquill.com)
- [OSW Centre for Eastern Studies: Data centres in Russia: the consequences of Ukrainian drone strikes (Oct 19, 2026)](https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2026-10-19/data-centres-russia-consequences-ukrainian-drone-strikes?ref=bullquill.com)
- [Kyiv Independent: Why Russia's war on Ukraine's data centers could backfire on Moscow (Oct 19, 2026)](https://kyivindependent.com/why-russias-war-on-ukraines-data-centers-could-backfire-on-moscow/?ref=bullquill.com)
- [Foreign Policy: Data centers are key targets in today's wars (Oct 20, 2026)](https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/10/20/data-centers-russia-ukraine-iran-gulf-internet-ai?ref=bullquill.com)
- [Yandex: Supercomputers](https://yandex.com/supercomputers?ref=bullquill.com)
- [TOP500: June 2026 list, ranks 101-200](https://top500.org/lists/top500/list/2026/06/?page=2&ref=bullquill.com)