Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian data centres disrupt banking and taxis

Data centres hit this month

• Yandex, Sasovo (Oct 8)
• Yandex, Kaluga
• Yandex, Vladimir
• Sberbank, Balakovo
• VKontakte, St. Petersburg

This month Ukraine hit three main data centres of the tech giant Yandex, one for Sberbank, Russia's biggest bank, and one for the social network VKontakte.

People across Russia reported disruptions to banking, e-commerce, ride-hailing and cloud services, and some courts reportedly postponed sessions.

“This effectively sets Russia far behind in the AI race,” said an activist who heads a Russian internet-freedom group.

— Mikhail Klimarev, Internet Protection Society

What's next

Yandex restored most key cloud services within days, but experts say repairing its AI supercomputers could take months, if not years.