Ukrainian strikes on data centres operated by Russia’s technology group Yandex have caused widespread disruption across multiple sectors of daily life in Russia, affecting services such as email, taxi apps, dating platforms, and electronic access systems in Moscow apartment buildings. The attacks have damaged three of Yandex’s six data centres over the past week, significantly impairing a company that serves as a central hub for Russia’s digital infrastructure.
Founded in 1997 as a search engine, Yandex has evolved into a multifaceted technology provider, often described as Russia’s equivalent to Google, Uber, Amazon, and OpenAI combined. Thousands of businesses rely on its infrastructure, meaning the recent strikes have impacted not only Yandex’s own services but also unrelated companies dependent on its technology. The disruption follows a series of earlier summer attacks on Russian refineries that resulted in long queues at petrol stations.
Kyiv stated that the data centre strikes were retaliatory measures for Moscow’s targeting of Ukrainian data centres. However, analysts suggest the consequences for Russia have been disproportionately severe, revealing weaknesses linked to the Kremlin’s long-term policy of consolidating control over the country’s IT sector. Many of these efforts center on Yandex, which was forcibly sold in 2024 to investors with close ties to President Vladimir Putin. Alena Epifanova, a research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, described the situation as Russia "becoming a victim of its own policy," creating a "worst-case scenario."
In addition to Yandex facilities, Ukrainian drone attacks targeted a data centre belonging to Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, in Balakovo, Saratov region. While Sberbank confirmed the strike, it reported that services remained operational.
The strikes have caused everyday inconveniences for Russians. Users have experienced difficulties accessing Yandex emails, opening work files, and booking taxis. Public transport information disappeared from some bus stop displays, and residents in several Moscow neighborhoods found themselves unable to enter shared courtyards due to electronic barrier gates reliant on Yandex’s infrastructure. Users of Yandex Pay, a digital banking and payment service that gained prominence after Apple Pay exited the Russian market, reported missing account balances, though the company assured customers that their funds were secure.
Additional websites, including Russia’s leading dating app Twinby and the fast-food chain Vkusno I tochka, which emerged as a local alternative to McDonald’s, experienced intermittent outages.
For some individuals, the impact has been deeply personal. One Muscovite said she lost access to a free wheelchair-accessible Yandex taxi service used to transport her disabled son to school, forcing them to navigate the metro system without reliable access to ramps or elevators for two days. Meanwhile, Alyona Zhiganova, founder of the travel agency Proadventure, expressed distress after losing a decade’s worth of business data and website content stored on Yandex’s systems. She had previously relied on US cloud providers, which ceased service in Russia following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Yandex’s data centres are integral to its ecosystem, with two facilities completely shut down and a third partially disabled by the attacks. The company has not provided a specific timeline for recovery. A source close to Yandex’s management indicated efforts to restore functionality were underway and aimed at returning services "somewhat more slowly than usual" in the short term, while reaching full capacity could take several months.
In response, Russia’s digital ministry pledged to protect such critical facilities in the future. President Vladimir Putin has recently assigned responsibility for anti-drone defenses to private businesses, advising them not to seek state support.
The disruptions have also extended beyond Russia’s borders, affecting neighboring countries including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus, where users reported problems accessing email, Yandex Pay, and other websites relying on Yandex infrastructure.