According to Reuters, Ukraine attacked a large data center operated by Russian technology company Yandex on Friday (October 9), causing some of its facilities to be paralyzed. Just one day before that, Ukraine had also attacked another similar facility belonging to the same company. Previously, Russia had launched attacks on data centers located within Ukraine's territory. Now, Ukraine is expanding its range of attacks against Russia.
Yandex's deep involvement in Russia's artificial intelligence development has sometimes been called "the Russian version of Google." The company states that its data center, located southwest of Moscow in Kaluga, California, was attacked by Ukrainian drones. Some facilities have ceased operation.
Ukrainian weapon manufacturer Firepoint stated that the attack was carried out using its FP-1 single-pass attack drone, targeting what they call Yandex’s largest data center. Firepoint said that several modules of the data center have been completely destroyed and cannot continue to function.
One day ago, an attack in Ukraine caused the data center of Yandex located in Sasovo, Lviv Oblast to shut down. Two out of the three supercomputers used by Yandex to develop artificial intelligence models were deployed at this facility. Yandex stated that the company is evaluating the losses caused by this attack and currently cannot confirm whether the related equipment can be repaired.
After more than four years of fighting, Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a escalating and deadly battle. Since the beginning of this year, both sides have expanded the range of drone attacks on infrastructure targets. The targets have moved from energy facilities, refineries, ports, and ships transporting oil and food to e-commerce warehouses, and recently have further expanded to data centers.
Yandex's applications under its umbrella are now an indispensable part of daily life for many Russians. The company states that this attack has hit the core of its business operations, and it is working to ensure smooth operation of all services.
In a statement, Yandex said: “The data center is Yandex’s steel heart. Its operation is crucial to those services that have integrated into people's daily lives. Millions of users rely on these services to query traffic conditions, plan routes, listen to music, watch movies, order groceries, and find answers to their questions.”
The statement also said: "Our technology helps hundreds of thousands of businesses to operate their businesses. These businesses use our technology to receive orders, serve customers, and conduct business with partners."
Yandex further stated that the company has reached agreements with other cloud service providers, enabling Yandex Cloud’s customers to quickly migrate their data and services.
Due to this impact, Yandex stock prices saw a sharp drop at the Moscow Stock Exchange, with a drop of 4.5%.
T-Investments stock research manager Maryana Lazaricheva stated, "Risk extends beyond the potential temporary disruption of Yandex services and income losses in specific business areas, also encompassing the company's large customer base of enterprise clients (B2B customers)."
She pointed out that Yandex can reassign some of its business workloads to other data centers.
However, if this series of attacks continues, this possibility will disappear, potentially leading to even more serious consequences.
Currently, the full impact of these attacks is still unknown. However, at least one Yandex application has displayed a warning message, indicating that there may be problems with its operation.
Yandex says that the company is working around the clock to restore services impacted by the incident.
The company stated in the same statement: “At present, this is our most important task. Unfortunately, it is not easy.”
In the past month, Russia has continuously attacked Ukrainian data centers and telecommunications infrastructure, including targets located in the center of Kyiv.
Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelenskyy said on Thursday: "We always respond in kind. As you all know, they have been attacking our data centers in the past, and they are still continuing to do so. We are responding."
Zelenskyy confirmed on Friday that Ukrainian drones attacked a data center in Kherson Oblast, and described this action as "our equivalent retaliation".
Kaliuka Governor Vladislav Shapsha said that Ukraine attacked unspecified infrastructure in the city, resulting in 9 people being injured, five of whom are currently receiving treatment in hospitals.
Previously, Ukraine launched attacks on warehouses of certain Russian companies. The Ukrainian side believes that these companies are important to the Russian economy, including e-commerce giants Wildberries and Ozon. These attacks subsequently led Russia to strike similar companies in Ukraine.
Yandex operates 5 data centers, of which 2 have been attacked. According to public information, the remaining 3 data center locations include 2 in Moscow Oblast and 1 in Vladimir Oblast.
Yandex stated in 2021 that the Sasovo data center, which was attacked on Thursday, deployed two of its three supercomputers from the company's A100-chip based AI model training platforms. These supercomputers were used to train YandexGPT, a large language model of artificial intelligence.
Yandex refuses to reveal whether these supercomputers were affected during an attack.
On Thursday, several online services in Russia reported technical failures. These included the real estate information platform Cian, the book portal Litmarket, as well as the official websites of Russian Railways and the Moscow Spartak professional football club.
Previously, the attacks by Ukraine against Russia caused a shortage of fuel and long queues at gas stations, resulting in losses for tens of thousands of small businesses engaged in e-commerce. In addition, the increase in fuel costs has led to higher prices of consumer goods, further driving up inflation levels.
Meanwhile, the attack on Ukrainian data centers by Russia has also forced some damaged facilities to suspend operations. In one of the attacks, about 100,000 households experienced interruptions in internet services.
Ukraine's Minister of Digital Affairs said in an interview with Reuters last month that in response to the Russian attacks, Ukraine is moving its digital infrastructure underground.
