Stories
Ukraine Data Centre Strikes Cripple Digital Services and Daily Life Across Russia
- •Ukrainian drone and missile strikes targeting Russian tech giant Yandex data centres have severely disrupted essential digital services across Russia.
- •Residents across major cities lost access to bank accounts, savings, digital payments, food delivery, and ride-hailing applications.
- •Smart-home systems and digital apartment building locks failed, leaving some citizens temporarily locked out of their homes.
- •The cyber and infrastructure attacks also affected services tied to Sberbank and technology company VK.
- •Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov downplayed the outages, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky defended the strikes as retaliation for Russian attacks on Ukrainian internet infrastructure.
Key Questions Answered
Ukrainian drone strikes targeting Yandex data centres disrupted essential digital services across Russia, leaving residents unable to access bank accounts through Yandex Pay, book taxis, order food, or use smart-home assistants and digital apartment locks.
Yandex confirmed that no employees were injured and stated that efforts were underway to restore the affected critical data centres. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov downplayed the operational difficulties, describing the company as strong and powerful despite receiving no immediate government financial assistance.
President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the strikes on Russian digital infrastructure were a response to Moscow's ongoing attacks aimed at cutting off internet access for Ukrainians. This tactical shift also comes as Ukraine faces mounting US pressure to limit its attacks on Russian energy facilities.
