The war between Russia and Ukraine has entered a new phase, with the objective of the attacks no longer only oil refinerys, military facilities and energy infrastructure, but also technological centres supporting the digital economy.
Russian giant Yandex, often known as “Russian Google” has confirmed that another data centre has been completely removed from office following a fearful attack in the Vladimir region, east of Moscow.
According to Reuters agency, Sunday's 11 October attack is the third to the company's main infrastructure within four days.
Yandex reported that there were no injured persons in the attack, but some company services have become temporarily unavailable to users.
The centre hit in Vladimir has been completely closed, while technical teams are assessing the damages and opportunities to restore systems.
The latest crackdown comes after two other attacks on Yandex facilities in the Sasovo and Kalugla regions.
On October 8th, a Ukrainian attack hit the centre in Sasovo, where there are two of the three supercomputers Yandex uses to develop artificial intelligence patterns.
Reuters reports that the company has not yet confirmed whether these supercomputers have been damaged and whether the affected equipment can be returned to function.
One day later, on October 9, Ukrainian drones also hit the center in Kalugula, removing several modules.
After these attacks, technical problems have been reported to various services dependent on Yandex infrastructure, including trade platforms, websites and remote services.
According to the Associated Press, disruptions have affected users in Russia and neighbouring countries, indicating that damage to data centres could have consequences beyond direct targets.
Yandex offers internet research services, navigation, transport, music, food order and data storage. Its infrastructure is also used by many businesses that rely on remote services for daily operation.
The attacks have also raised concerns for the Russian intelligence sector, as the centre in Sasovo houses important computer systems for training of Jandex models GPT.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has declared that his country is responding to Russian attacks on Ukrainian digital infrastructure.
According to Reuters, Russia has hit data centres and telecommunications facilities in Ukraine over the past few weeks, causing disruptions of services and internet connections.
This escalation shows that technological infrastructure is becoming increasingly important in the war between the two countries.
As Yandex tries to restore services, recent attacks raise a broader question for the global technology industry: how safe are the military conflict data centres?
For companies that rely on remote services, damage to a single centre can cause wide disruptions, financial losses and difficulties in restoring operations.
