Strikes on Yandex and Datagroup Show Data Centers Emerging as Wartime Targets
Ukraine says its October 11 attack near Vladimir damaged multiple Yandex data‑center buildings and hit the Galushkin supercomputer used for AI services. Days later, Ukrainian reports said a Russian ballistic strike destroyed a major Datagroup data center in Kyiv, underscoring how server farms are becoming deliberate military and economic targets.
Digital infrastructure has moved closer to the front line of the Russia‑Ukraine war, with both sides hitting each other’s data centers and high‑performance computing assets.
Ukrainian authorities say that an October 11 strike on Yandex data centers near the Russian city of Vladimir hit five of eight buildings. According to their assessment, three of those were likely critically damaged. They also report that the Galushkin supercomputer at the site was struck. That system supports YandexGPT and the Alice voice assistant, key components of Yandex’s artificial intelligence and consumer services.
On the Ukrainian side, local channels reported that a Russian ballistic missile destroyed a Datagroup data center in Kyiv. Datagroup is a telecoms and data services provider. Footage from the aftermath shows a heavily damaged building with obvious fire and structural damage. Ukrainian reports described the facility as destroyed.
Neither Yandex nor Datagroup has published a detailed technical assessment of the damage so far. Ukrainian sources suggest that several Yandex buildings will need lengthy reconstruction and hardware replacement, while the Datagroup site in Kyiv is treated as a total loss.
Data centers sit behind much of modern life: they host government databases, banking systems, company networks and cloud services. When they are hit, the effects can ripple through public services and private business, even if the physical blast is confined to a single building. Damaging Yandex’s Galushkin supercomputer, for example, could slow development and operation of AI tools that feed into everything from search results to voice‑assistant responses for millions of users.
On the Ukrainian side, a destroyed commercial data center can disrupt connectivity and data storage for a wide range of clients, including hospitals, municipal services and private firms that rent space instead of running their own server rooms. In a country already dealing with blackouts and damaged infrastructure, that adds another layer of strain.
Militaries also see these facilities in operational terms. High‑performance computing and large server farms process satellite images, train recognition algorithms, and support cyber and intelligence work. Hitting Yandex’s supercomputer fits a Ukrainian effort to impose costs on the Russian tech ecosystem, which is increasingly tied into state surveillance and information campaigns. Russia’s strike on a Ukrainian data center in Kyiv sends a message that commercial providers supporting Ukraine’s connectivity and digital resilience are not off limits either.
The pattern points to a broader trend in contemporary conflict, where power plants and bridges share the target list with server halls and fiber links. As more critical functions move into the cloud, the physical buildings that host that cloud become more valuable to attack.
What happens next will depend on how both sides adapt. Analysts will watch for signs that Yandex can shift its workloads to other sites or rebuild the damaged Vladimir complex, and whether Ukrainian operators like Datagroup disperse services across more locations or move them abroad. Any future strikes timed with cyberattacks on the same organizations would suggest a more integrated campaign against the digital backbone of both economies.
Sources
- OSINT