Ukrainian drone strikes have severely damaged two of Yandex's five major data centres in Sasovo and Kaluga, disrupting Russian digital services and threatening its AI development. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy confirmed the operations as a tit-for-tat response to Russian strikes on Ukrainian data hubs. The attacks forced Yandex to suspend operations at its Sasovo hub, which houses two of its three AI supercomputers, causing its stock to fall 4.5% on the Moscow exchange.
Kaluga data centre strike
- ▪Five of the nine people injured in the October 9, 2026, drone attack on Kaluga's infrastructure were treated in hospital, according to Kaluga's regional governor Vladislav Shapsha
- ▪Ukrainian drone strikes hit and partly disabled a major Yandex data centre in the Kaluga region on October 9, 2026
- ▪Ukrainian arms maker Firepoint stated that Kyiv used its FP-1 one-way attack drones to target Yandex's Kaluga data centre, knocking out several modules
Sasovo data centre strike
- ▪A Ukrainian drone strike on October 8, 2026, caused a fire and shut down Yandex's Sasovo data hub in the Ryazan region, leaving the company unable to confirm if the equipment can be restored
- ▪Yandex declined to confirm whether its two AI supercomputers housed at the Sasovo facility were damaged or destroyed in the October 8, 2026, drone strike on that facility
- ▪Yandex deployed specialist teams to its Sasovo data centre to assess the damage from the October 8, 2026, drone strike on that facility
- ▪Yandex's Sasovo data centre houses two of the company's three supercomputers built around Nvidia A100 chips, which are used to train Yandex's YandexGPT AI model
Impact on Yandex services and stock
- ▪Yandex shares fell 4.5% on the Moscow exchange following the drone strikes on its Sasovo and Kaluga data centres
- ▪Yandex reported that some AI chatbot functions were temporarily unavailable and smart home devices faced potential problems due to the Sasovo and Kaluga data centre strikes
Official justifications and reactions
- ▪The Ukrainian defence ministry stated that the October 2026 drone strikes on Yandex data centres could force Russia to divert resources to repair the damaged capacity
- ▪Kyiv stated that Ukraine's drone strikes on Yandex data centres were aimed at disrupting revenue streams for Moscow's war machine
- ▪Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy confirmed the drone strikes on Yandex's Sasovo and Kaluga data centres, calling them a mirror-like, tit-for-tat response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centres
Russian attacks on Ukrainian digital infrastructure
- ▪Some Ukrainian firms have begun moving their data from damaged servers to facilities abroad following Russian attacks
- ▪Ukraine's digital minister reported that the country is moving its digital infrastructure underground in response to ongoing Russian attacks
- ▪Moscow justified its attacks on Ukrainian data centres by claiming they were used by Ukrainian military intelligence
- ▪Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centres have forced some facilities to suspend operations and caused temporary internet outages for 100,000 households
Debatable claims
- ▪Yandex's role in training Russian AI models makes its supercomputers legitimate military targets
- ▪Ukraine's strikes on Russian tech infrastructure successfully force Moscow to divert military resources
- ▪Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries are a justified response to attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure
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