Russia’s Yandex says data centre in Vladimir shut down after drone attack

A Russian data centre run by technology and AI company ⁠Yandex has been shut down after it was hit in a drone attack.

No injuries were reported in the attack on the facility in the city of Vladimir, east of the capital, Moscow, the company said on Sunday.

Emergency services were at the site and several of Yandex’s services were unavailable ‌to users, the company said, as it evaluated ways to restore its systems.

“Operations at the data centre have been completely suspended,” Yandex said in a service alert on Telegram, advising users to activate disaster-recovery plans as the platform operated in emergency mode.

“The remaining resource configuration is considered unstable,” it added, warning that technical support communications could also be disrupted as teams assessed the damage.

It is the third attack on the company’s data centres in the last week, as Russia and Ukraine continue to escalate attacks on each other’s technology infrastructure.

On Friday, Yandex, which ⁠is heavily involved ⁠in Russia’s AI development and is sometimes referred to as “Russia’s Google”, said its data centre in the Kaluga ⁠region southwest of Moscow was struck by ⁠Ukrainian drones and partly ⁠put out of action.

A day earlier, a Ukrainian attack shut down Yandex’s data hub ‌in Sasovo, southeast of Moscow, where two of the three supercomputers used ‌to ‌develop the company’s AI model are housed.

“We always respond in mirror-like fashion,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday, following the Sasovo strike. “You all know, they have been hitting and continue to hit our data centres. We are responding. I can’t share all the details.”

Russia has struck several Ukrainian data centres and telecommunications infrastructure facilities over the past month, including targets in central Kyiv, in an apparent effort to disrupt the country’s connectivity and digital commerce.