Putin demands Russian data centers supply capacity to the state in wake of Ukraine drone attacks — 10% capacity must be available for state IT infrastructure with 24 hours' notice

Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed non-state data center owners to reserve 10% of their capacity to support the country's state-owned IT infrastructure, as reported by Reuters. The move aims to rapidly release additional data center compute power for state use if required. The directive follows recent Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian data centers, causing significant damage and disrupting state-owned internet services.

In early October, drones targeted Russia's largest data center, severely damaging it and forcing the removal of multiple modules. The 63-megawatt facility serves key services like Yandex Mail, Disk, Documents, Pay, and Market, though Yandex claims that essential services remain functional. Two weeks later, Ukraine attacked the finance ministry's data center, which houses Russia's tax databases and other state registry data.

To fulfill Putin's directive, the Digital Development Ministry must assess all available data center capacity and floor space across privately-owned facilities in Russia. A government commission will have the authority to requisition reserved data center capacity, and third-party data center owners will have 24 hours to comply. The temporary use of data centers located outside Russia is also under consideration, pending approval from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).

Additionally, Russian data centers have fallen victim to cyberattacks. On the same day the government announced its plan to utilize data center capacity from third parties, the Russian Federal State Statistics Service revealed that its servers had been breached, with 23TB of data, including sensitive wartime loss information, stolen. This data includes classified information marked "for official use only."