Russia has long promoted its digital capabilities, from its expansive e-commerce industry to ambitious efforts to establish itself as a global force in artificial intelligence.
Now, however, drone strikes by Ukraine have damaged several data centers central to that technological infrastructure during the 4 1/2-year-old full-scale invasion. Repairs could take months or even longer.
This month, Ukraine struck three major data centers operated by technology giant Yandex, one belonging to Sberbank — one of Russia’s largest banks — and another serving VKontakte, the country’s counterpart to Facebook.
Yandex, Sberbank and VKontakte have offered few details about the damage. But individuals and companies across Russia have reported broad disruptions to cloud services. Problems have affected banking, online shopping, geolocation and ride-hailing platforms, along with Yandex’s Alisa virtual assistant and multimodal AI chatbots.
The disruption has also reached Russia’s courts, with reports that arbitration hearings were canceled or delayed and access to databases was cut off.
Most experts say restoring the damaged systems could require months, or potentially years. Some caution that the strikes may seriously undermine Moscow’s plans to become a leader in artificial intelligence.
“This effectively sets Russia far behind in the AI race,” said Mikhail Klimarev, head of the activist group Internet Protection Society.
Data centers have been hit by both sides in the war
Data centers have become the latest targets in aerial campaigns by both Russia and Ukraine against infrastructure considered vital to the other side.
Russian missiles and drones have repeatedly struck Ukraine’s power grid and other critical facilities as part of the Kremlin’s effort to erode morale and resistance. Moscow intensified the attacks as winter neared, exploiting a shortage of U.S.-supplied Patriot interceptors after Washington’s war with Iran depleted available stocks.
Ukraine responded with waves of drone strikes on Russian oil refineries, setting off a major fuel crisis and bringing the consequences of the war directly to millions of Russian civilians.
U.S. President Donald Trump has attributed rising global oil prices to the attacks, although prices have climbed largely because of the U.S. war in Iran. Earlier this month, Trump reached an agreement with President Vladimir Putin to import diesel oil, a move that shocked Ukraine and its allies.
Ukraine has also targeted large warehouses operated by Russia’s leading online retailers, Wildberries and Ozon.
The Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centers came soon after Russian attacks on data centers in Ukraine, disrupting internet access and television broadcasts.
On Oct. 8, Ukrainian drones struck a Yandex data center in Sasovo, in the Ryazan region. The facility houses two of Yandex’s three supercomputers. A second Yandex center in Kaluga was hit the following day, while a facility in Vladimir came under attack on Oct. 11.
Sberbank’s data center and AI hub in Balakovo, in the Saratov region, was struck on Oct. 14. Four days later, Kyiv hit a data center in St. Petersburg that supports VKontakte.
Data centers are vulnerable
Oil refineries and warehouses may be obvious targets, but data centers can be even more vulnerable. These large buildings contain dense concentrations of servers, along with the power and cooling systems needed to keep them running. A drone carrying a relatively small explosive charge can still cause prolonged damage.
Iran demonstrated that vulnerability when its drones struck two Amazon Web Services data centers in the United Arab Emirates and another in Bahrain. AWS said last month that it could not restore access to the resources and data hosted at two of those facilities.
Yandex had conducted emergency drills based on the loss of one of its six data centers. Yet the company was unprepared when three key facilities were struck within four days. It remained unclear why air defenses around the sites failed to stop the attacks.
“The problem in Russia is that they’ve got to cover a big country with air defense and they don’t have enough,” said Nick Reiners, senior geotechnology analyst at Eurasia Group.
Russia’s efforts to build a ‘sovereign internet’ backfire
Ukraine has stored critical data on servers in allied European countries, helping limit the damage from Russian attacks. But Moscow’s strict digital sovereignty policy requires all data storage at home, making it extremely vulnerable.
“Because all the infrastructure and all the data is located inside Russia, it’s relatively easier to take down,” Reiners said.
Klimarev predicted the data center attacks could encourage many top Russian companies to move data abroad, while the authorities could ease their efforts to tighten internet controls to minimize the damage.
“Paradoxically, the strikes on data centers have saved the Russian internet from isolation, as they will now have to move computing assets, most likely, to Europe,” Klimarev said. “It’s quite likely that many Russian businesses are now roaming the European market to rent computing assets.”
Russians are vexed by service disruptions
Yandex dominates digital life in Russia and many former Soviet nations. It provides a wide variety of functions, including a search engine, cloud storage, payment apps, geolocation and ride-hailing services, and e-commerce platforms.
“Yandex is kind of like Uber and Amazon and Google and everything rolled into one,” with everything “concentrated in just a few data centers,” Reiners said. “From a strategic perspective, they’re an excellent target.”
The attacks on Yandex caused unprecedented disruptions, paralyzing payments, online orders, taxi rides and access to personal data.
Moscow resident Igor Mann said he couldn’t collect an order he placed with Yandex Market, an e-commerce platform. He said he tried using a virtual private network, but “nothing worked.”
Taxi driver Pavel Belyavskiy, who gets orders via Yandex’s ride-hailing app, couldn’t connect with passengers.
“On several orders already, I’ve ended up waiting for a long time and had to cancel the ride because I couldn’t even get in touch with the passenger,” he said.
The attacks also caused temporary disruptions at some major companies and banks that rely on Yandex cloud services.
“It’s not just about convenience — it’s also about work … tied to everyday life,” said another Moscow resident, Eduard Malyavko.
A blow to Russia’s AI ambitions
Yandex said it restored most key cloud services in the following days as it turned to other data centers in Russia. But the damage to the company’s AI development efforts is widely seen as massive and longer-lasting.
Yandex has invested in huge data centers as the global AI boom fuels demand for computing power. The company’s three supercomputers used to develop models are ranked among the top 500 in the world. Its most powerful computer — at the Sasovo data center — was ranked 19th.
Yandex didn’t disclose the extent of the strikes’ consequences, but satellite images indicated its data centers sustained serious damage. Some observers noted that fires triggered by the attacks probably seriously damaged high-end chips and other key equipment.
“With this kind of hit, it’s hard to expect that at least something was left intact — the data centers’ equipment is fragile, demanding and expensive,” Klimarev said. “Soot from the fire is bad for electronics.”
While Russia already lagged years behind the U.S. and China, “Ukraine’s drone strikes will likely still set back Russian AI efforts further,” said Connor Martin, an expert with the Council for Foreign Relations.
He said in a commentary that Russia likely will struggle to quickly replace the U.S.-designed Nvidia A100 chips powering Yandex’s supercomputers.
Klimarev also said the global deficit of high-end chips, combined with the sanctions on their delivery to Russia, will make repairs long and costly.
“I’m not sure it can be done in half a year, a year, or even at all,” he said.
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Kelvin Chan in London contributed.
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