Russian search engine Yandex struggles after Ukrainian strikes on data centres

Russian search engine Yandex is facing difficulties in maintaining its services following two drone strikes on its data centres in the past two days, according to the tech giant. Often referred to as "Russia's Google," Yandex operates the country's most popular search engine and other widely used apps. President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the attacks are in retaliation for weeks of Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centres. Both nations have intensified assaults on infrastructure amid the ongoing conflict.

Yandex's Sasovo data centre in the Ryazan region was severely damaged overnight, leading to completely suspended operations. Meanwhile, the Kaluga data centre, located southwest of Moscow, suffered partial infrastructure damage on Friday morning. The company explained that its data centres are critical for normal service operations and admitted it is challenging to predict when they will be back online. Yandex teams are working tirelessly to keep services running, but the task is proving difficult.

No Yandex employees have been injured in the strikes. However, the regional governor in Kaluga reported that nine people were injured in a drone attack on the city's infrastructure. The extent of the disruption to Yandex's services remains unclear, though it mentioned some AI chatbot functions were temporarily unavailable, and smart home devices may face issues. It is uncertain if the supercomputers at the Sasovo data centre, crucial for Yandex's AI model development, survived the attack.

Ukraine's defence ministry confirmed the data centre attacks, suggesting Russia might need to divert resources to repair the damaged capacity. Zelensky emphasized that Kyiv is responding to similar Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centres in a "mirror-like fashion." Last month, a Russian drone strike in Kyiv killed four people and damaged a data centre, causing internet outages for about 100,000 households in the city and surrounding region. Some Ukrainian firms have started moving data from damaged servers to facilities abroad.

Moscow defends the attacks by claiming the data centres are used by Ukrainian military intelligence. However, Ukraine asserts that the strikes are deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure. Russia has intensified strikes on energy infrastructure ahead of winter, mirroring previous years of the full-scale invasion that began in 2022.