Ukrainian rescuers release photos of aftermath of Russian drone attack on Rivne

In the past week, Ukrainian forces have targeted several of Yandex's largest data centers, disrupting the operations of various Russian national applications and digital services. Russia has also targeted Ukrainian data centers in recent weeks, but these attacks have had a more disruptive effect on Russia's online disinformation activities. A new report from Cloudflare indicates that bot traffic has merely migrated to other hosts, rather than being significantly impacted.

The Russian digital landscape has evolved over the course of the war, with Ukrainian supporters publishing bingo cards listing various targets across different industries. However, Yandex's data centers, while numerous, are few in number compared to other providers with extensive cloud capacity. With such a small number of critical targets, Ukraine could potentially significantly impair Russia's digital services across major cities.

Ukraine's networks are hardened and backed by numerous allies, making it more resilient to disruption compared to Russia's inward-facing digital infrastructure. In contrast, Russian applications, such as Yandex, cover a wide range of services including search, mapping, shopping, cloud storage, ridesharing, and food ordering, making it difficult to find viable alternatives when they are disrupted.

Furthermore, Russia's limited alliances and inward-focused digital infrastructure make it more vulnerable to the impact of Ukrainian attacks.