Ukrainian drones conducted strikes against Yandex data centers in the Sasovo and Kaluga regions on October 8 and October 9. The Kaluga facility, identified as the company's largest, was targeted by FP-1 one-way attack drones manufactured by the Ukrainian firm Firepoint.
The initial strike in Sasovo impacted a facility housing two of Yandex's three supercomputers, which are utilized for training the YandexGPT artificial intelligence model. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described these actions as a symmetrical response to Russian strikes on Ukrainian data infrastructure.
Yandex confirmed that no personnel were injured, though the company acknowledged service disruptions. Users reported issues accessing various platforms, including the Ivi video streaming service, T-Bank, and the Russian Railways website, alongside real estate and dating applications.
Data centers have increasingly become targets in 2026. Earlier this year, Iranian drones disabled Amazon facilities in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates following attacks on Iran by the United States and Israel. Ukraine has also previously targeted warehouses of major Russian retailers Wildberries and Ozon.
