Ukrainian drones struck two Yandex data centers in Russia, including one used to train the YandexGPT AI model

What happened

Ukrainian drones struck data centers owned by the Russian tech company Yandex on October 8 and October 9, Ars Technica reported, citing Reuters. The facilities are in the Sasovo and Kaluga regions of Russia. Ars Technica described Yandex as "Russia's Google."

According to Ars Technica, the strikes were a direct response to a Russian drone campaign aimed at Ukraine's own data centers. That campaign has disrupted mobile phone and Internet service for thousands of Ukrainians since late September.

The two facilities that were hit

Sasovo: hardware for training AI

The first Ukrainian attack targeted Yandex's Sasovo data center, Ars Technica reported. That site houses two of the company's three supercomputers used to train its YandexGPT AI model.

Kaluga: the company's largest site

The later strike hit the Kaluga data center, which Ars Technica said is Yandex's largest such facility. The Ukrainian company Firepoint said its FP-1 one-way attack drones were involved in that strike, according to Reuters.

Kyiv's explanation

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the strikes in a post on X. "We continue to respond to Russia's attacks on Ukraine, and we're doing so with high precision," he wrote, according to Ars Technica. He called the hit on another data center "our symmetrical response."

Which services went down

Yandex said no employees were hurt, but the company acknowledged disruptions to some services. Russian users reported trouble reaching media websites and popular apps, according to the independent Russian outlet Meduza. Those included the Ivi video streaming platform, the digital banking service T-Bank and the state-owned Russian Railways.

Reuters listed other affected services. They included a dating app, a real estate aggregator and a self-publishing book platform. The website of the most successful professional soccer club in the Russian Premier League was also affected.

Data centers as wartime targets

Ars Technica called the strikes the latest example of data centers becoming wartime targets in 2026. The United States and Israel attacked Iran in February. Iranian drones then knocked out multiple Amazon data centers in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, the outlet reported.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Since then, Ars Technica noted, Russia has regularly launched mass missile and drone attacks on Ukraine's cities. Those attacks have hit power grid infrastructure, transportation hubs and residential apartment buildings.

Ukraine's wider drone campaign

Ukraine has recently faced a shortage of interceptor weapons that can shoot down Russian missiles and jet-powered drones, Ars Technica reported. Its military has also gradually expanded its own medium-range and long-range drone strikes. Targets have included Russian military bases, supply lines, Russian-linked shipping in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea, and energy sites such as oil refineries. In the summer of 2026, Ukraine also hit warehouses belonging to Wildberries and Ozon, which Ars Technica called Russia's Amazon equivalents.

Ships sunk in NATO waters

On October 5 and October 6, coordinated aerial and sea drone strikes sank two commercial ships in the Black Sea. The ships went down within the exclusive economic zones of NATO members Romania and Bulgaria. Zelenskyy attributed those attacks to Russia, and Ars Technica described the sinkings as a sign of a potentially widening war.

Why the AI angle stands out

Ars Technica's account shows these strikes did more than cause consumer outages. The Sasovo site holds most of the supercomputers Yandex uses to build its AI model. For more coverage of how AI systems and the infrastructure behind them are changing, see our AI and tech section.

What to watch next

• Whether Yandex restores the services it acknowledged were disrupted after the strikes.
• Russia's drone campaign against Ukraine's data centers, which has disrupted phone and Internet service for thousands of Ukrainians since late September.
• Ukraine's shortage of interceptor weapons against Russian missiles and jet-powered drones.
• Developments after the October 5 and October 6 ship sinkings in Romanian and Bulgarian waters, which Zelenskyy attributed to Russia.