Drone attack sparks fire at Yandex data centre in Russia

Sasovo, Russia. Drones hit a data centre owned by Yandex, Russia’s leading AI and technology company, causing a fire and forcing the site to suspend operations, the company said on Thursday. It was the first major attack on a Russian data hub since the start of the war with Ukraine.

Operations suspended at Sasovo hub

Yandex said its Sasovo hub, one of its five large data centres, hosts tens of thousands of servers. The company said it was restoring affected services but did not describe the extent of the damage.

The company, often dubbed “Russia’s Google”, said its core consumer services were unaffected.

On the website of its Yandex Cloud service, the company warned customers of electricity supply problems affecting one data centre “zone” and recommended using other zones.

Drone attacks spread across the economy

Mutual drone attacks by Russia and Ukraine this year have gradually spread across the economy, targeting energy facilities, refineries, ports, vessels carrying oil and grain, e-commerce warehouses and, most recently, data centres.

Russia has conducted a strike campaign against Ukrainian data centres and telecommunications infrastructure over the past month, including targets in central Kyiv.

There had previously been no confirmed major Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian data centres.

Ukrainian attacks on Russia have led to fuel shortages and queues at petrol stations, losses for tens of thousands of small businesses involved in e-commerce, and higher inflation as rising fuel costs feed through to consumer prices.

Infrastructure protection and overseas data centres

Russian President Vladimir Putin in August gave the state the power to take control of critically important infrastructure if it is deemed poorly protected against drone attacks.

Russia’s RBC news outlet reported on Thursday, citing sources, that businesses were in talks with the government about developing data centres in countries Moscow considers “friendly”.