Ukraine hits two Yandex data centres in back-to-back drone strikes

Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign has found a new kind of target: Russia’s server racks. Over two consecutive days in early October 2026, drones struck two data centres operated by Yandex, the tech giant often described as “Russia’s Google.” One facility shut down entirely. The other lost several modules. Two strikes, two days The first attack came on October 8 at Yandex’s Sasovo facility in the Ryazan region. The strike set off a significant fire and forced a complete operational shutdown. Sasovo was no ordinary storage site. It housed two supercomputers, named “Lyapunov” and “Chervonenkis,” that were crucial for training YandexGPT, the company’s AI model. The second strike followed on October 9 at the Kaluga site, southwest of Moscow. This time the damage was partial, with several modules disabled rather than the whole facility going offline. Ukrainian drone manufacturer Firepoint confirmed that its drones were involved in the Kaluga attack. Taken together, the two strikes hit Yandex in two different ways. Sasovo cut into the company’s AI training capacity. Kaluga chipped away at the infrastructure behind its commercial services. Fallout for Yandex and its customers Yandex ackn...