After the attacks on the warehouses of the e-commerce giant "Wildberries," it seems that Ukraine has begun targeting Russian digital infrastructure. Several data centers belonging to Yandex (the Russian Google) were struck by Ukrainian drones at the beginning of October this year, leading to disruptions in some essential services. This strategy primarily aims to weaken the Russian economy and highlight the vulnerability of these facilities in the ongoing conflict between the two countries.
After e-commerce, Russian digital infrastructure has now come under the crosshairs of Ukrainian drones. Yandex, the leading digital company in the Russian-speaking world, which is nicknamed the Russian Google, faced a series of strikes on its data centers in recent days, resulting in significant disruptions to its services: internet search, corporate data hosting, food delivery, taxi booking, and even electronic payments.
When asked about the consequences of this paralysis on Russian users, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov acknowledged several "difficulties" in front of journalists on Tuesday, October 13, adding that "the company is taking emergency measures to cope with the consequences [...] Yandex is strong and capable of quickly overcoming the obstacles."
On October 8, a drone disabled the Sasovo data center, one of Yandex's most important data centers. This data center is located in the Ryazan region, about 300 kilometers southeast of Moscow, hosts tens of thousands of servers, and supports part of the "cloud" services, in addition to two out of three supercomputers used by the group for the company's artificial intelligence development.
The next day, a new Ukrainian attack targeted the Kaluga site, located nearly 200 kilometers southwest of Moscow. On Sunday, a data center east of the capital, in Vladimir Oblast, was also struck, resulting in significant damage.
According to Kyiv, these drone strikes are a direct response to Russian attacks in September on Ukrainian data centers, as well as on the headquarters of the telecommunications company Kyivstar, which deprived more than 100,000 families of internet access.
Volodymyr Zelensky mocked on Monday at the Warsaw Security Forum, referring to an alleged decrease in Russian disinformation: "When we began responding to Russia's operations against our data centers and when our strikes hit Yandex data centers, things suddenly became a bit easier and less complicated on many social media platforms."
Disruption of Economic Activity
In fact, targeting data centers in Russia has only a limited effect on the activities of Russian media disinformation centers, due to the completely decentralized structure of these centers, as our colleagues at "Observers" at France24 mention.
For Ukraine, these attacks fall within a broader strategy, similar to strikes on oil refineries, aimed at weakening economic activity and disrupting the daily lives of Russian citizens, as noted by Olivier Kempf, a research associate at the Strategic Research Foundation.
The expert elaborates: "Both warring parties have developed their strategies towards long-range strikes aimed at disrupting economic activity. Ukraine began this summer with a campaign against the warehouses of the e-commerce giant Wildberries, and now it is extending to data centers," pointing to the fragility of these civilian infrastructures "that are impossible to protect," which extend over tens or even hundreds of thousands of square meters.
Once considered mere technical infrastructure a few years ago, data centers increasingly appear as pillars of geopolitical power, making them targets.
This new reality was highlighted in March 2026, when Iranian drones struck two Amazon Web Services data centers in the UAE, causing significant damage to a third center in Bahrain. After six months from these attacks, the American giant acknowledged its inability to restore data hosted in the Bahrain region.
Fabrice Epilboin, a digital entrepreneur and social media expert, notes: "In the case of Bahrain, Iran did not only destroy the data center itself, but also the backups of that data.
Data centers always operate on this principle, but if the backups are located in another targeted data center, all data may be permanently lost, and your business could vanish overnight. The impact can be tremendous." He adds: "Yandex's infrastructure is among the most sensitive informational infrastructures in Russia, and its importance can be compared to that of a desalination plant in the Middle East."
"Another Phase" of the War
Far from being a virtual entity, the "cloud" is indeed based on physical infrastructure. In addition to servers, the operation of a data center relies on complex cooling and electrical systems and cable pathways. Thus, a part of the infrastructure can become unusable if any of these elements are damaged. According to Yandex, the main services for the public continued to operate despite the Ukrainian strikes.
Olivier Kempf estimates: "We do not know if Yandex data centers are completely disabled, but it is assumed that data has not been completely lost. In this regard, there is a form of Russian resilience. They are adapting and repairing. Currently, these are relatively temporary disruptions."
As a sign of the adaptation of Russian civil infrastructure to the threats coming from Ukraine, Wildberries recently requested 478,000 square meters of metal networks to protect its warehouses from Ukrainian drones, according to the independent Russian media "The Bell."
For its part, TASS agency reported on Monday that the Russian Ministries of Defense and Digital Development are exploring measures aimed at protecting data centers from drone attacks.
This Ukrainian attack also highlights the issue of protecting these vital civil digital infrastructures under international law. Many NGOs and companies are demanding the development and adaptation of the legal framework for this purpose. Olivier Kempf points out that the Geneva Convention, formulated in 1949, and its additional protocols of 1977, "do not cover digital infrastructure."
Fabrice Epilboin emphasizes: "Data centers today are considered a legitimate military target. In theory, the Geneva Conventions should prohibit that." He concludes: "But modern warfare has entered another phase, and striking civil infrastructure is no longer perceived as a problem at all."