Drones Strike Third Yandex Data Centre, Disrupts 80+ Services Across Russia
Drones struck a Yandex data centre in Russia's Vladimir region, halting its operations and disrupting more than 80 services. It is the third attack on the company's server infrastructure since last week. What was hit? Kyiv Post, citing the Telegram channels ASTRA and Crimean Wind, said the target was a facility of roughly 40 to 50 megawatts in Vladimir's Energetik district. It is built to hold up…
On October 11, drones targeted a Yandex data centre in Vladimir, Russia, causing it to cease operations and disrupting over 80 services across the country. This marked the third attack on Yandex's server infrastructure within a week. According to the Telegram channels ASTRA and Crimean Wind, cited by the Kyiv Post, the facility had a capacity of 40 to 50 megawatts and housed up to 2,880 server racks, making it one of Yandex's primary processing hubs.
Yandex confirmed the site was out of service, affecting everyday products such as the Alice voice assistant, Yandex Music, Telemost video-calling tool, and Smart Home platform. The company's AI interfaces, such as YandexGPT API, SpeechKit, and Vision OCR, were also affected. The data centre's damage extended beyond Yandex, impacting Russian and neighboring businesses, including banking apps, ride-hailing services, and retail chains like Magnit and Fix Price.
Vladimir Governor Aleksandr Avdeev revealed that the strikes damaged local electrical substations, leading to power cuts in parts of the city. By the following morning, utility crews reported that heating and water supplies had been restored, and about 80 percent of electricity had been restored. Russia's Defence Ministry reported shooting down 479 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones over 16 regions, including Vladimir, Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Rostov, Crimea, and the Black Sea.
This incident follows two previous drone strikes on Yandex sites. On October 8, a data centre in Sasovo, Ryazan region, was completely shut down, disrupting services for Russian Railways, mobile operator MegaFon, and several media outlets. On October 9, several modules at the Yandex Kaluga data centre were disabled, with the company still assessing the damage. In response, Yandex removed the locations of its data centres in four Russian regions from its mapping platform.
Yandex shares dropped around 4 percent on the Moscow Exchange earlier in the week. Ukrainian military analysts argue that systematic strikes on data centres and communication networks disrupt Russian state logistics and corporate administration, weakening digital command-and-control systems supporting Russia's war effort. Both sides have intensified their drone campaigns this year, with Russia targeting Ukrainian data centres and telecom infrastructure, while Ukraine responds in kind.
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