Ukraine drones strike Yandex data centers for second consecutive day

Ukrainian drones struck a key data center belonging to Yandex, Russia's dominant internet company, triggering a two-day campaign of precision strikes that threatened to knock out critical digital services — including search and maps — across the country.

According to Reuters, the Associated Press and other outlets, a Yandex data center in Russia's Kaluga region came under Ukrainian attack and partially suspended operations. The strike was the second in as many days, following an attack on the Sasovo facility on Thursday (local time).

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky officially confirmed both strikes — Thursday's and Friday's — describing them as retaliation for Russian infrastructure attacks. Ukrainian weapons manufacturer Firepoint said it deployed its FP-1 attack drones in the strikes, disabling multiple modules at the data centers.

The Sasovo center houses two of the three supercomputers Yandex uses to develop its AI models. The company said it was assessing the damage and could not yet determine whether the equipment could be repaired. Yandex shares tumbled 4.5% on the Moscow Exchange immediately after the attack. With two of its five data centers hit, Yandex launched emergency operations to migrate customer data and maintain services.

The Ukrainian military also said it had struck oil refineries in Omsk and Ukhta, as well as three facilities linked to missile production in Russia's Tver region and elsewhere. Major online services in Russia — including a real estate platform, the national railway authority's website and a professional football club's site — also experienced technical outages.

The strikes are widely interpreted as a counterpunch to a large-scale Russian offensive that continued through Thursday. Russian attacks using ballistic missiles and jet-propelled drones on Wednesday and Thursday leveled apartment buildings and set off explosions on city buses across Ukraine, killing more than 50 civilians.