Russia’s Yandex says second data centre hit by drone attack

Russian technology and AI company Yandex said on Friday that several modules at its data centre in Russia’s Kaluga region had been completely disabled by a drone attack, the second in two days. Some of the company’s services may be disrupted, Yandex said, adding that no one was injured in the attack southwest of Moscow. On Thursday, a Ukrainian drone hit another Yandex data centre in the Ryazan region, southeast of the capital, where two of the three supercomputers used to develop the company’s AI model are housed. Yandex said it was assessing the damage from that strike and could not confirm whether the equipment could be restored. Both Russia and Ukraine have expanded drone attacks this year on economic targets, from energy facilities and refineries to ports and vessels carrying oil and grain, e-commerce warehouses and, most recently, data centres. Russia has conducted a strike campaign against Ukrainian data centres and telecommunications infrastructure over the past month, including targets in central Kyiv. “We always respond in mirror-like fashion,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday. “You all know, they have been hitting and continue to hit our data centres. We are responding. I can’t share all the details.”