Three Yandex data centers attacked in Russia in one week

Three Yandex data centers attacked in Russia in one week
A drone attack on a data center of artificial intelligence company Yandex in the Russian city of Vladimir.

A data center of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) company Yandex has been completely shut down following a drone attack in the Russian city of Vladimir.

The company announced this information on Sunday (October 11). Yandex said that no one was injured in the attack, Al Jazeera reported.

Emergency workers arrived at the site of the attack on the data center in the city of Vladimir, east of the Russian capital Moscow. The company is currently assessing the damage and looking for ways to restore systems. Meanwhile, customers are experiencing problems using several of Yandex's services due to the data center being down.

In a statement posted on Telegram, Yandex said the data center's operations had been completely suspended. The company advised users to activate alternative recovery plans to keep services running in case of an emergency.

The statement added that the center's remaining assets are considered unstable. Communication with technical support services may also be disrupted while damage is assessed.

This is the third attack on Yandex's data center in the past week, in a series of escalating counterattacks targeting technological infrastructure between Russia and Ukraine.

Earlier on Friday (October 9), the company reported a Ukrainian drone attack on a Yandex data center in the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow. The attack partially disrupted the center's operations.

A day earlier, another Yandex data center in the town of Sasovo, southeast of Moscow, was attacked, shutting down operations. The center houses two of Yandex's three supercomputers used to build AI models.

"We always respond," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said after the attack in Sasovo on Thursday (October 8). He added that Russia has been attacking Ukrainian data centers and Ukraine is responding. However, he added that it is not possible to disclose all the information in this regard.

Russia has attacked several data centers and telecommunications infrastructure in Ukraine over the past month, including some in the central area of ​​the capital, Kiev.  

The attacks are believed to be aimed at disrupting Ukraine's communications and digital commerce, but it is unclear what long-term impact the series of attacks on Yandex's data centers will have on Russia's digital services and AI operations.

Yandex, known as Russia's equivalent of Google, is also playing a key role in the country's development of AI technology. As a result, a series of attacks on the company's data centers have raised new concerns for Russia's technological infrastructure.