Ukrainian attacks paralyze Russian digital services, artificial intelligence infrastructure also hit

News

Express newspaper

22/10/2026 7:51

This month, Ukrainian drones attacked important data centers in Russia owned by Yandex, Sberbank, and VKontakte. The attacks disrupted digital services across the country.
The targets included three large Yandex data centers, one data center owned by Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, and one belonging to VKontakte, a Russian social network similar to Facebook. The companies have shared few details about the damage, but users and businesses have reported ongoing problems with cloud services.

The disruptions affected banking, online shopping, location services, taxi services, Yandex's virtual assistant, “Alisa,” and AI chatbots that can work with different types of information. The effects reportedly also reached the court system. Some arbitration courts had to cancel or delay hearings because they could no longer access databases.

Most experts believe repairs could take months or even years. Mikhail Klimarev, head of the activist group Internet Protection Society, said: “This, in practice, leaves Russia far behind in the artificial intelligence race.”

The attacks on data centers are part of a wider conflict in which both sides target important infrastructure. Russian missiles and drones have struck Ukraine's power grid and other vital facilities. Ukraine has responded by attacking Russian oil refineries, warehouses used by online retailers Wildberries and Ozon, and now digital infrastructure. Yandex plays a major role in everyday digital life in Russia and many former Soviet states. It offers search, cloud services, payments, location tools, taxi services, and online shopping. Nick Reiners, a senior analyst who studies technology and geopolitics at Eurasia Group, described Yandex as a mix of Uber, Amazon, and Google, with its services concentrated in a small number of major centers.

Yandex's AI development has been especially badly affected. Two of the company's three supercomputers were located at a site in Sasovo, which was hit on October 8. Data centers in Kaluga and Vladimir were attacked in the days that followed. Experts warn that Russia will struggle to replace the US-designed “Nvidia A100” chips quickly. These chips are difficult to find on the global market, and sanctions make it even harder for Russia to obtain them.