Ukraine Hits Yandex Data Centre Again as Drone Campaign Targets Russian Tech Infrastructure

A Ukrainian drone strike has damaged a data centre belonging to Yandex, forcing the Russian technology company to suspend operations at the facility, in what marks the third attack on the firm's infrastructure within a single week. The centre, located in the town of Vladimir to the east of Moscow, was struck overnight, according to statements issued by the company.

Yandex, frequently described as "Russia's Google" because of its dominance in search, advertising, mapping and digital services across the country, confirmed the damage through its Telegram channel. The company said no employees or other individuals were hurt in the incident, but acknowledged that operations at the site had been "completely suspended" while engineers worked to restore connectivity for users.

The strike is the latest in a sustained Ukrainian campaign against Yandex facilities. On Thursday, a data centre in Sasovo was hit, followed by another in Kaluga, south-west of Moscow, on Friday. Together with the Vladimir attack, the three incidents have placed significant strain on the company's ability to keep its platforms running normally.

Following the earlier strikes, Yandex publicly admitted it was struggling to maintain its services after two of its five data centres were knocked out. The company said its data centres were critical to the normal operation of its products and warned that it was "very difficult to predict" when full capacity would be restored.

The disruption has been felt across a range of popular services. Yandex operates an AI chatbot, smart home devices, a food delivery platform and a taxi-hailing app used by tens of millions of people across Russia. Users have reported availability problems with several of these products since the attacks began, underlining how deeply the company's infrastructure is woven into daily life in the country.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have intensified strikes on infrastructure targets in recent months, as the war continues into its fifth year following Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbour. The escalation reflects a broader shift toward targeting assets that sustain each side's economy and military capacity, rather than solely frontline positions.

Ukrainian officials have framed the Yandex strikes as part of a deliberate strategy. Kyiv says it is targeting facilities that generate revenue streams for Moscow's war effort. According to this logic, forcing a major technology company to divert resources toward repairing damaged data centres imposes real costs on the Russian state and its ability to fund military operations.

The attack came just hours after US President Donald Trump publicly warned that Ukraine should "damn well stop" attacking Russia's oil refineries, arguing that Moscow should be allowed to release more diesel onto the global market. That position has drawn sharp criticism from European allies and triggered a diplomatic row with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The timing of the Vladimir strike therefore carries additional political weight. It suggests that Kyiv is not prepared to limit its long-range drone campaign in response to pressure from Washington, at least not while Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities continue unabated. The divergence between US and Ukrainian priorities appears to be widening.

Russian strikes on Ukraine continued throughout the weekend. Ukraine's State Emergency Service reported that six people were injured in overnight attacks on four districts of the south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region. The damage adds to the mounting civilian toll across the country as winter approaches.

On Saturday, local officials confirmed that at least 20 people, including four children, were killed in Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia. The strike ranks among the deadliest single incidents in recent weeks and has prompted renewed international condemnation of Moscow's targeting of populated areas.

The exchange of attacks on data infrastructure is not one-sided. Russia has previously struck Ukrainian data centres, causing internet outages and prompting a number of Ukrainian firms to relocate their servers abroad in an effort to protect critical data and maintain business continuity.

Analysts note that data centres have become strategic assets in modern warfare because they underpin communications, financial transactions, logistics and government services. Disabling them can disrupt public life far beyond the companies that own them, creating pressure on governments and eroding public confidence.

For Yandex, the practical consequences are substantial. With only five major data centres and three of them recently damaged, the company faces difficult decisions about how to distribute traffic and prioritise services. Restoring redundancy typically requires significant time, equipment and investment, all of which are harder to secure under wartime conditions and international sanctions.

The company has not indicated how long the Vladimir facility will remain offline. Its public messaging has emphasised that work is under way to restore connectivity, but it has avoided firm timelines, reflecting the uncertainty created by the ongoing threat of further strikes.

The broader trajectory suggests that infrastructure attacks will remain a central feature of the conflict. For Ukraine, targeting technology and energy assets offers a way to impose costs deep inside Russia. For Russia, continued strikes on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure serve both military and coercive purposes. The result is an escalating cycle in which civilian services and commercial networks increasingly find themselves on the front line.