Why Russia's war on Ukraine's data centers could backfire on Moscow

Russia's war against Ukraine has extended to targeting the country's digital infrastructure. Kyiv's retaliatory strikes have exposed flaws in Moscow's organization of IT infrastructure. In September, Russia damaged a Kyiv data center belonging to internet provider UTELS, causing service disruptions for around 100,000 households.

Since then, Russia has increasingly targeted Ukraine's digital infrastructure, expanding its targets as its battlefield offensives have failed to achieve objectives. Russia's centralized data centers concentrated in Moscow and surrounding regions are particularly vulnerable to Ukrainian long-range drone strikes. Experts estimate that about 80% of Russia's data centers are within reach of Ukrainian drones.

However, a nationwide shutdown of Ukraine's internet is deemed unlikely given the country's decentralized infrastructure. In October, Ukrainian drones struck Yandex, Sberbank, and VK data centers, disrupting payments, banking, and online services in Russia. While Ukraine can cause temporary outages, a complete shutdown of internet access across the country is considered extremely difficult.