A Ukrainian drone attack on a Yandex data center in the Ryazan region caused a fire and widespread service disruptions across Russia.

Ukrainian forces struck a Yandex data center in Sasovo, Russia, with drones overnight on October 8, resulting in a fire and a complete temporary shutdown of the facility. The site, which hosts tens of thousands of servers, is one of five major data centers operated by the Russian technology company. While no injuries were reported, the incident triggered cascading service outages for Yandex and several other major Russian companies.

Impact on Services and Infrastructure

The shutdown of the Sasovo facility caused immediate access issues for Yandex services, including Yandex Disk, Yandex Documents, and Yandex Mail. Disruptions subsequently spread to other platforms and companies that rely on Yandex infrastructure, such as Cian, Avito, IVI, MegaFon, and Russian Railways. Experts suggest these secondary outages may have been caused by efforts to redistribute server capacity following the fire. The Sasovo site houses two of Yandex’s three supercomputers, known as Lyapunov and Chervonenkis, which are utilized for training neural networks. Yandex has stated that it is currently assessing the extent of the infrastructure damage and has not yet confirmed whether the equipment at the site can be restored.

Market and Operational Consequences

Following the attack, Yandex shares fell by more than 3% on the Moscow Exchange. The company is now evaluating its operational strategy, with the possibility that it may move away from large centralized hubs toward smaller, distributed facilities to mitigate the risk of future strikes. While some data stored at the site may be recoverable through Yandex’s multi-zone cloud backup system, the long-term viability of the Sasovo location remains uncertain.