MOSCOW, Russia – A series of drone strikes has damaged data centers operated by some of Russia’s largest technology companies, disrupting online services and raising questions about the country’s ability to develop advanced artificial intelligence systems.
The attacks in October hit three facilities linked to Yandex, a major Russian search, cloud and AI company. Drones also struck a Sberbank data center and a server facility used by VK, the country’s largest social network.
The impact varies by company. Yandex has confirmed serious damage and shutdowns at its facilities. Sberbank and VK said their systems continued operating after their sites came under attack. The extent of the physical damage and the effect on AI computing remain unclear.
The incidents show how damage to a small number of large facilities can affect services used by businesses and ordinary people. They do not, however, establish that Russia’s AI research has been permanently derailed.
Three Yandex facilities affected
The first confirmed attack on Yandex’s facilities occurred overnight from October 7 to 8 at its data center in Sasovo, in the Ryazan region. Yandex said a drone attack seriously damaged the site and forced it to shut down completely. The company reported no injuries among its staff.
On October 9, Yandex said another attack had damaged infrastructure at its data center in Kaluga. Several modules were put out of service, and the company warned that some services could be disrupted.
A third facility, in the Vladimir region, was hit on October 11. Yandex Cloud’s status records said the center’s operations had been completely suspended and the remaining cloud configuration was unstable.
The three incidents affected different facilities and did not produce identical outcomes. Sasovo and Vladimir were shut down, while Kaluga suffered damage to part of its infrastructure. Yandex has not published a complete inventory of damaged equipment at all three sites.
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Satellite imagery provides additional evidence of the damage in Sasovo. Images taken on October 11 show burn marks on the western side of the facility’s roof compared with earlier imagery. That supports the conclusion that the building suffered physical damage, but it does not reveal the condition of individual servers inside.
Cloud services and everyday activities disrupted
Yandex’s data centers support services that include search, navigation, ride-hailing, payments and cloud computing. Disruptions to the company’s infrastructure therefore extend beyond its own products.
Yandex Cloud has operated in a limited emergency mode since the attacks began. Its status updates have recorded unavailable computing resources, restrictions on creating new resources and problems affecting some database, storage and other cloud services.
The company has advised customers to consider recovery plans that use infrastructure outside its own affected environment. It has also made its Russian cloud services free for eligible existing customers through October 31, 2026, while recovery work continues.
The disruptions have created problems for businesses that rely on Yandex’s cloud platform. Customers may need to restore data, move workloads or use other providers to keep important services running.
Yandex has not disclosed how many customers have been affected or how many have completed a move to alternative infrastructure. Reports of agreements with other cloud providers indicate that alternative arrangements have been explored, but the number of successful migrations remains unclear.
The effects on consumers also vary. A service may become unavailable because its own infrastructure was damaged, because a cloud dependency failed or because the operator restricted access while stabilizing its systems. An outage alone does not prove that the service’s own data center was physically hit.
What happened at Sberbank and VK?
A drone attack struck a Sberbank data center in Balakovo, in Saratov region, on October 14. The bank confirmed the attack but said its systems and services continued to operate without disruption.
The site is significant to Russia’s computing plans. It has been associated with a large supercomputer project that was still under construction, with commissioning scheduled for 2027. However, public information reviewed for this report does not establish that the planned machine was operational or damaged in the attack.
On October 18, a server facility used by VK in Leningrad region was also struck. VK said its systems continued to operate. The company has not publicly provided a detailed account of physical damage to equipment or a recovery timetable.
These statements suggest that an attack on a facility does not automatically mean that all services operated by its owner will fail. Companies may use other facilities, backup systems or alternative routes to maintain operations. The extent of that protection depends on how their systems are designed and where their workloads run.
Did the strikes damage Russia’s AI supercomputers?
The possible impact on AI computing is one of the biggest unanswered questions.
Yandex operates large computing systems used to develop and run its AI models. Two of its supercomputers have been associated with the Sasovo facility, while another powerful machine has been linked to the Vladimir region.
But Yandex has not confirmed that any of these supercomputers were destroyed or rendered unusable by the attacks. The shutdown of a data center proves that its operations stopped; it does not, by itself, establish the condition of every server or accelerator inside.
That distinction matters because AI systems rely on more than individual processors. They need power, cooling, networking, storage and software to work together. Damage to electrical equipment or cooling systems can prevent servers from operating even when some of the hardware remains intact.
If specialized accelerators or supporting equipment were destroyed, replacing them could take time. Operators may need to obtain compatible hardware, repair power and cooling systems, reinstall software and test their systems before returning workloads to service.
Russia’s access to advanced computing hardware is also constrained by international sanctions and reliance on imported technology. These factors could complicate replacement and expansion, but the precise repair timeline depends on the actual damage and the availability of spare equipment.
No verified public inventory currently establishes how many AI accelerators were lost, which training runs were interrupted or how long individual research projects might be delayed. Claims that the attacks have set Russia’s AI ambitions back by months or years should therefore be treated as forecasts, not confirmed outcomes.
A wider campaign against digital infrastructure
The attacks in Russia followed strikes on data centers and telecommunications infrastructure in Ukraine.
The Centre for Eastern Studies documented damage to multiple Ukrainian facilities in late September, including sites in Kyiv and Dnipro. It also reported damage to a technology facility in Odesa in October. Ukrainian infrastructure operators have faced disruption to internet access and other services following attacks on their networks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged attacks on Russian data centers and described them as a response to Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. His remarks provide context for Ukraine’s stated position, but do not independently establish the military significance of each targeted facility.
The two countries’ infrastructure losses are not necessarily equivalent. Their effects depend on the number and location of affected facilities, the services hosted there and whether operators can shift workloads elsewhere.
The attacks also expose a wider weakness in digital infrastructure: concentrating services in a limited number of large facilities can create significant disruption when those sites lose power or become unusable.
Recovery remains uncertain
Yandex has said it cannot yet give a reliable deadline for restoring all affected equipment. Its cloud guidance continues to recommend alternative recovery plans while engineers work to improve service availability.
The company has not published a full account of the damage to its servers, power systems or cooling equipment. Nor has it confirmed the condition of the supercomputers linked to the affected facilities.
For Sberbank and VK, public statements indicate that services continued operating after their facilities were hit, but detailed equipment assessments and recovery timelines remain unavailable.
The immediate consequences are clearer than the long-term ones. Some data-center operations have stopped, parts of Yandex’s cloud platform remain restricted, and customers have had to consider recovery options. The degree of lasting damage to AI computing capacity remains unresolved.
The attacks may increase the cost and difficulty of maintaining Russia’s digital infrastructure, particularly if specialized equipment needs replacement. But determining the effect on AI research will require more evidence about damaged hardware, interrupted workloads and the time needed to restore computing capacity.
For now, the confirmed story is one of infrastructure damage and service disruption. Whether those losses will produce a lasting setback for Russia’s AI development remains an open question.
Reporting Credit: Yandex — official statements and Yandex Cloud status updates confirming damage, shutdowns and service restrictions at its Sasovo, Kaluga and Vladimir facilities. Sberbank — statement confirming the attack on its Balakovo facility and reporting that its services continued operating. VK — public statement on continued service operation following the attack on a facility it uses. Vertical52 — independent satellite-image analysis documenting visible roof damage at Sasovo. Centre for Eastern Studies — analysis of attacks on data centers in Russia and Ukraine and the implications for infrastructure resilience.
