Russia’s digital economy is becoming a new battleground as Ukrainian drone strikes target critical technology infrastructure, with attacks this month on data centers operated by Russian tech giant Yandex and Sberbank, the country’s largest bank, disrupting online services, cloud infrastructure and digital payments and triggering outages across multiple regions.

While attacks on Russian energy and trade infrastructure in recent months have disrupted production and supply chains, the strikes on data centers mark a shift toward digital infrastructure, bringing its security into sharper focus in the Russia-Ukraine war.

On Oct. 8, a drone attack severely damaged Yandex’s data center in Sasovo in Russia’s Ryazan region, forcing the facility to shut down. The following day, another drone attack damaged the company’s facility in Kaluga, its largest data center in Russia, knocking several modules out of service.

A third Yandex data center, in Russia’s Vladimir region, ceased operations after being struck by a drone on Oct. 11, disrupting services used by the tech firm and its corporate clients.

The damage to all three data centers led to widespread disruptions across Yandex’s services and those of its corporate clients.

No Yandex employees were reportedly injured in the attacks, but the company has yet to provide a definitive timeline for restoring the damaged data centers to operation.

The recent attacks that crippled Russian digital infrastructure followed an escalation in Russian military strikes on Ukrainian data centers and telecommunications infrastructure.

Sberbank First Deputy Chairman Alexander Vedyakhin said Wednesday that a drone had attacked the bank’s data center in Balakovo in Russia’s Saratov region.

Vedyakhin said no Sberbank employees were injured in the attack and that all of the bank’s systems and services continued to operate normally.

Saratov Governor Roman Busargin said the strike in Balakovo also damaged residential buildings, killing one person.

Meanwhile, attacks on Yandex’s infrastructure disrupted a wide range of consumer services, including Yandex Go, Yandex Pay, Yandex Mail and Yandex Disk, while also affecting smart home systems powered by its Alisa artificial intelligence (AI) assistant.

Yandex’s outages also disrupted third-party businesses, including retailers, internet service providers and other online platforms that rely on its cloud infrastructure, highlighting the risks of Russia’s dependence on a small number of major technology providers.

Real estate platform Cian said on Oct. 12 that its website and mobile app had resumed operations with limited functionality following an outage. E-commerce retailer M.Video reported disruptions to its website and mobile app on Oct. 11, with both services restored the following day, although some functions remained slower than usual. Internet service provider Dom.ru also reported service disruptions on Oct. 11.

Dmitry Pirogov, the head of Yandex’s fintech division, said money transfers had partially resumed following service disruptions. Separately, on Tuesday, Yandex announced that it would waive eligible fees for Yandex Cloud services from Oct. 8 through Oct. 31 and provide fee relief forrs on personal Yandex 360 plans during October.

While most of Yandex’s smart home systems and features of its AI assistant, Alisa, have been restored, the company said that status updates for some devices may be delayed and that cloud-based automation systems have yet to be fully restored.

Yandex Advertising announced Tuesday that several key services had resumed operations, while access to Yandex Direct and Yandex Business accounts remained temporarily restricted. Existing advertising campaigns continued to run, but advertisers were unable to manage campaigns, adjust settings, or view reports through their accounts.

The Yandex data centers targeted by Ukrainian drones housed critical infrastructure for Russia’s AI development, including two of the company’s three supercomputers used to train its YandexGPT model. The facilities also supported cloud computing services for business customers. However, the extent of the damage to the AI hardware remains unclear.

Yandex partnered with alternative cloud providers Selectel, VK Cloud and K2 Cloud to help mitigate the impact of the outages by accelerating the migration of affected corporate clients’ data and services to alternative infrastructure.

The disruptions extended beyond Russia, affecting Yandex applications in neighboring countries, including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where users reported problems with taxi bookings, food delivery and other services.

Maksut Shadayev, Russia’s Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, told a State Duma committee that his ministry was working with the Defense Ministry on measures to protect data centers from drone attacks following the strikes on Yandex facilities.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the Russian government was discussing the fallout from disruptions affecting Yandex, adding that it was too early to assess users’ potential financial losses or determine whether compensation would be provided.

Russian data center operators are stepping up efforts to protect their facilities against drone attacks, with industry sources reporting that some companies have begun procuring additional protective equipment and upgrading defenses around critical infrastructure.

Ukraine has frequently targeted Russian oil refineries, fuel depots and logistics infrastructure. Since mid-July, Ukrainian drone strikes have also hit warehouses operated by Russia’s largest e-commerce companies, Wildberries and Ozon, disrupting distribution networks across multiple regions. The attacks forced the companies to adjust logistics operations, redistribute inventory and reroute shipments as they worked to restore normal service.