Ukrainian Drones Hit Yandex Data Center and Gazprom Refinery Deep Inside Russia
Ukrainian drones struck a major Yandex data center in Russia’s Ryazan Oblast and the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat refinery in Bashkortostan, damaging digital infrastructure, sparking fires and underscoring Kyiv’s ability to hit targets far from the front.
Ukraine’s latest long-range drone strikes have pushed the war deeper into Russia’s rear, hitting both its digital infrastructure and fuel industry in a single night.
On 8 October, Ukrainian drones struck a Yandex data center in the town of Sasovo in Russia’s Ryazan Oblast and the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat oil refining and petrochemical complex in Bashkortostan, according to Ukrainian and Russian reports. Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed the strike on the Salavat facility and said a fire broke out there. Ukrainian sources described the Sasovo data hub as one of Yandex’s largest data centers.
The Salavat complex can process up to 10 million tonnes of hydrocarbon feedstock per year. It produces gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, bitumen, polyethylene and other products. Ukraine’s military says the refinery helps supply the Russian war effort, though it has not publicly detailed volumes. Hitting such an installation roughly 1,400 kilometers from the border, as Ukrainian reports describe the range, signals both reach and intent to disrupt Russia’s broader fuel system.
In Sasovo, Ukrainian accounts say the drone strike damaged the data center, triggered power outages and caused widespread disruptions to Yandex cloud services. Yandex is Russia’s dominant search and web-services firm, and its cloud arm underpins many Russian businesses and public services. Damage in one large facility forces traffic rerouting across the network and raises concerns about how exposed similar sites may be.
Ukrainian outlets framed the overnight operation as retaliation for Russia’s 6–7 October “mega strike” on Ukrainian cities, which hit energy and industrial locations including a chemical plant in southwest Kyiv. Russian forces also used long-range weapons against Kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyi district, where authorities reported at least three people killed and 14 injured earlier on 8 October. A construction supermarket in the capital was reported on fire with thick black smoke visible.
The Salavat and Sasovo strikes fit into a wider pattern. Ukraine has been moving from tactical targets near front lines to deep strikes on Russian territory: oil bases in Samara, the Samara oil pumping station where a large fire is still burning after a renewed attack, and now major refining and data nodes. Russian reports say air defenses are active over Omsk as Ukrainian FP-1 attack drones push toward the Omsk Oil Refinery, Russia’s largest, which processes about 21–23 million tonnes of crude annually and supplies gasoline, diesel and aviation kerosene to Russian forces.
For Russian civilians, these attacks bring the war closer to systems they depend on. A refinery fire can tighten local fuel supplies and affect prices or availability in surrounding regions. Disruption at a large cloud data center can create outages for online banking, e-commerce and corporate IT, even if backup capacity limits the impact.
For Kyiv, energy and digital targets are a way to raise costs for Russia without matching Moscow’s missile stockpile. Refineries and advanced data centers are slow and expensive to repair. Each successful strike complicates Russian logistics and weakens confidence that rear areas are secure.
The energy war is already visible in Russia’s Samara region, where a major fire continues to burn at the oil pumping station after an earlier Ukrainian attack. Ukrainian military statements are increasingly highlighting operations against facilities like Salavat that feed Russia’s fuel network. At the same time, Russian media, citing The Telegraph, report that President Vladimir Putin ordered General Sergei Surovikin to destroy bridges in Kyiv to hinder movement across the Dnipro River, pointing to a broader effort by both sides to hit transport, fuel, power and digital links.
How much this latest strike package changes the war will depend on what follows. Key signals will be any renewed Ukrainian drone attacks on the Omsk refinery and other deep targets, independent confirmation of the damage at Salavat, Sasovo and Samara, and evidence of lasting outages in Yandex cloud services. Russian choices about further strikes on Ukrainian data centers or formal declarations expanding what it labels as legitimate infrastructure targets will show whether this phase of targeting energy and networks is set to intensify.
Sources
- OSINT