Since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine Crisis, ‘critical infrastructure’ has been one of the key elements of the conflict. Energy facilities, oil refineries, ports, railways, storage centers, and logistics lines have been among the targets of mutual attacks at various periods. Developments in October 2026 indicate that a new and increasingly important element has been added to this list. Data centers are now becoming more visible among the physical targets of the war.
Between October 7-11, 2026, three of Yandex’s data centers located in Sasovo, Kaluga, and Vladimir were affected by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks. The company announced that the center in Sasovo was completely disabled, a portion of the infrastructure in Kaluga became inoperable, and the facility in Vladimir also ceased operations on October 11, 2026. On October 14, 2026, Sberbank’s Balakovo data center in the Saratov region was attacked, followed by an attack on VK’s data center in the Leningrad region on October 18, 2026. Thus, within a period of approximately ten days, five separate data centers used by Russia’s most prominent technology and finance companies became the direct subjects of attacks.
At first glance, data centers might appear to be secondary targets of the war when compared to oil refineries or military bases. However, the situation is becoming increasingly different regarding the functioning of modern states. Numerous functions, from banking services to cloud systems, navigation to e-commerce, and public services to artificial intelligence applications, are dependent on the same physical computing infrastructure. Therefore, the impact of a data center being disabled is not limited solely to the material value of the building or the servers within it. The simultaneous disruption of hundreds of different services utilizing the same infrastructure can amplify the economic and societal consequences of the physical damage.
The Yandex case has clearly demonstrated this dependence. Following the attacks on its three data centers, varying degrees of outages were experienced in search, maps, transportation, delivery, payment, email, and cloud services. The issue was not confined solely to the company’s own users. Other businesses utilizing the Yandex Cloud infrastructure were also affected by the outages. According to information in the Russian press, the damage to the data centers caused problems in the services of companies operating in various fields, ranging from ERP systems to real estate platforms.
Nevertheless, it is also necessary not to exaggerate the impact of the attacks. It is not possible to speak of the collapse of Russia’s digital infrastructure or Yandex becoming dysfunctional for an extended period. The company gradually restored its services by redirecting them to alternative infrastructures. As of October 19, 2026, taxi, delivery, car-sharing, and certain city services began operating again. On October 23, 2026, Yandex Cloud announced that access to 90.47 percent of the data stored on the platform had been restored and that some services were migrated to a new location.
Consequently, the most significant outcome of the October attacks is not that they completely halted Russia’s digital economy. What is more important is that they made visible which points of the system are vulnerable to physical attacks. For a long time, ‘cybersecurity’ discussions have focused on how information within data centers is accessed, how systems are infiltrated, or how networks are protected. The Ukraine War, on the other hand, demonstrates that the protection of digital infrastructure is no longer merely a cybersecurity issue. The buildings housing the servers, electrical connections, cooling systems, fiber lines, and backup power supplies have also become direct components of digital security.
At this point, the relationship between data centers and artificial intelligence capacity is also of particular importance. Yandex and Sberbank are not merely traditional internet or finance companies. Both companies are among the primary actors in Russia’s artificial intelligence ecosystem. It is reported that Yandex’s attacked facilities housed the company’s significant supercomputer infrastructure, and Sberbank’s facility in Balakovo was planned to be used in developing new large-scale computing capacity. In contrast, there is no definitive and comprehensive information publicly disclosed regarding the extent to which the supercomputers were damaged in the attacks. Therefore, it is still too early to say that the attacks have permanently disrupted Russia’s artificial intelligence program.
The main problem is not solely the damage to existing machines. Rebuilding data center infrastructure is a more complex process than repairing an ordinary commercial building. Energy systems, cooling infrastructure, servers, network hardware, and high-performance processors may need to be replaced simultaneously. For Russia, sanctions on access to Western technology are also a variable that could increase the cost and duration of this process. According to an assessment by Kommersant on October 23, 2026, the Yandex capacity affected by the attacks is estimated to be at the level of approximately 115 MW. In the same assessment, it is noted that the data center sector in Russia was already facing an unmet demand problem of around 150-200 MW prior to the attacks.
This picture indicates that the economic impact of the attacks could be broader than the direct physical damage. The reduction in usable capacity increases the demand for the remaining data centers while forcing companies to establish additional backup systems. Simultaneously, investments are required in electronic warfare systems, engineering protections, counter-UAV solutions, and alternative data centers for physical security. All of these could raise the cost of cloud and data center services in Russia. Indeed, it is observed that following the attacks, the Russian technology sector has begun to focus more on infrastructure distributed across two or three facilities in different regions and separate backup systems, rather than a single center.
This situation also demonstrates that the concept of ‘digital sovereignty’ developed by Russia in recent years is facing a new test. Moscow has long considered keeping critical data within the country, reducing dependence on foreign platforms, and developing a domestic digital ecosystem as components of ‘strategic autonomy’. The logic of this approach has strengthened further, especially following sanctions and the withdrawal of Western technology companies from the Russian market. However, keeping data within the country does not create resilience on its own. If computing capacity is concentrated in a limited number of large centers, digital sovereignty can give rise to a new physical concentration risk while reducing external dependence.
Therefore, the debate following the October attacks is increasingly shifting from whether data should be kept in Russia to the issue of where and with what architecture it will be stored within the country. The Russian Ministry of Digital Development has brought to the agenda the development of new centers in regions with energy surpluses, such as the Urals and Eastern Siberia, against the problems created by the concentration of a significant portion of computing resources in and around Moscow. Should this approach be implemented, a more distributed structure may emerge in Russia’s digital infrastructure map in the long term.
The attack on the VK data center on October 18, 2026, made it clearer that the issue is not a company security problem unique to Yandex. While confirming the attack, VK announced that its services were continuing normally. In contrast, an increase in user complaints was recorded on independent network monitoring systems during the same period. Although it is difficult to reach a definitive conclusion regarding causality, the incident can be evaluated as a significant sign indicating that the attacks could spread to different major technology companies.
The steps taken by the Russian state in the following days also reveal the change in threat perception. On October 21, 2026, the Ministry of Digital Development established a sector center dedicated to protecting communication networks and ‘critical digital infrastructure’ against external interventions, particularly UAV attacks. The Ministry also began to identify critical communication facilities that need to be protected and to increase coordination with the Ministry of Defense. The establishment of backup communication lines and alternative systems was also among the core elements of this approach.
The new recommendations announced on October 25, 2026, demonstrate more clearly the point the issue has reached. It is proposed that data centers in Russia be evaluated in three different categories according to their strategic importance, and that physical reinforcement, electronic protection, defense against air threats, and data redundancy be enhanced at critical facilities. Constructing new facilities underground or modifying existing centers to make them harder to detect from the air are also among the options being discussed. Industry representatives assess that such measures could increase the cost of data center services by approximately 10 percent.
Thus, the fundamental problem posed by the attacks for Russia is not solely deploying more air defense systems. The main issue is the reorganization of the digital infrastructure according to the principle of ‘resilience’. An architecture where the loss of a single center does not affect dozens of services simultaneously, where data is backed up concurrently in geographically separated centers, and where critical systems can be transferred to another facility in a short time, offers a more long-term solution.
Moreover, this transformation is not unique to Russia. Russia has also recently escalated its attacks targeting Ukraine’s telecommunications and data infrastructure. Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergiy Koretskyi stated on October 23, 2026, that the intensity of Russian attacks directed at digital infrastructure has reached a level comparable to attacks on energy infrastructure. The damage to numerous data centers in Kyiv in September and the targeting of different technology facilities in October indicate that digital infrastructure is increasingly becoming a visible target category for both sides of the war.
For this reason, reading the developments merely as Ukraine developing a new attack method directed at Russia’s technological capacity would be an incomplete assessment. The emerging picture points to a broader transformation. As the digitalization of modern economies increases, the concept of ‘critical infrastructure’ in warfare also expands. The strategic dependence that was discussed in the past through power plants, bridges, railways, or fuel depots is valid today for cloud infrastructure, servers, data centers, and high-performance computing capacity.
One of the important consequences of this is the further narrowing of the distance between war and daily life. While the impact of damage to a refinery often reaches the consumer indirectly through prices or fuel supply, the disabling of a data center can directly affect ordinary activities such as calling a taxi, making a payment, accessing email, or using online services. This situation makes data infrastructure a part of not only economic but also societal resilience.
Ultimately, the significance of the attacks directed at data centers in Russia in October 2026 is greater than the momentary service outages they generated. Yandex’s ability to restore a significant portion of its services has shown that the Russian digital system possesses a certain level of redundancy and recovery capacity. In contrast, the ability to target the infrastructure of Yandex, Sberbank, and VK during the same period has also made a serious vulnerability visible in terms of physical security and geographical concentration.
In the upcoming period, the defining issue will not be whether data centers will be attacked, but rather the extent to which states will be able to limit the impact of these attacks. Geographical distribution, energy access, physical protection, technological supply, data redundancy, and alternative computing capacity are increasingly becoming parts of the same security equation. In this sense, the Russia-Ukraine Crisis demonstrates not only the digitalization of war, but also the transformation of the digital world itself into an increasingly physical battleground.
