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Russia prides itself on its digital advances \u2014 from an extensive e-commerce services sector to ambitious plans for developing artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
But now, some of the key data centers at the heart of its technical prowess have been knocked out by Ukrainian drone attacks in the 4 1\/2-year-old full-scale invasion, suffering damage that could take a long time to repair.<\/p>\n
Ukraine this month hit three main data centers belonging to tech giant Yandex, one for Russia\u2019s biggest bank, Sberbank, and one for social media platform VKontakte, the country\u2019s equivalent to Facebook.<\/p>\n
While Yandex, Sberbank and VKontakte are coy about the damage, people and businesses across Russia have reported widespread interruptions to cloud services. Banking, e-commerce, geolocation and ride-hailing services, as well as Alisa, Yandex\u2019s virtual assistant, and multimodal AI chatbots all have suffered lasting disruptions.<\/p>\n
The fallout even spread to Russia\u2019s judicial system, reportedly forcing arbitration courts to cancel or postpone sessions and cutting database access.<\/p>\n
Most experts predict repairing the damage could take months, if not years. Some warn that Moscow\u2019s aspirations to become a leader in AI development could be significantly set back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis effectively sets Russia far behind in the AI race,\u201d said Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society activist group.<\/p>\n
Data centers have been hit by both sides in the war<\/p>\n
Data centers are the latest targets of aerial campaigns waged by both sides against each other\u2019s vital infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Russian missiles and drones have pummeled Ukraine\u2019s power grid and other key sites, part of Kremlin efforts to weaken morale and resistance. Moscow stepped up those attacks as winter approaches, taking advantage of a shortage of U.S.-supplied Patriot interceptors, whose stockpiles have been drained by Washington\u2019s war with Iran.<\/p>\n
Ukraine retaliated with waves of drone attacks against Russian oil refineries, triggering a massive fuel crisis and bringing the war home to millions of civilians.<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump has blamed the attacks for higher global oil prices, which have escalated largely due to the U.S. war in Iran. Earlier this month, Trump struck a deal with President Vladimir Putin to import diesel oil, shocking Ukraine and its allies.<\/p>\n
Ukraine also hit huge warehouses for Russia\u2019s top online retailers, Wildberries and Ozon.<\/p>\n
Kyiv\u2019s attacks on Russian data centers closely followed Moscow\u2019s recent strikes on data centers in Ukraine, which disrupted the internet and TV broadcasts.<\/p>\n
On Oct. 8, Ukrainian drones hit a Yandex data center in Sasovo in the Ryazan region that houses two of the company\u2019s three supercomputers. A data center in Kaluga was hit a day later and the one in Vladimir was struck Oct. 11.<\/p>\n
The data center and AI hub for Sberbank was hit Oct. 14 in Balakovo in the Saratov region, and four days later, Kyiv struck a data center in St. Petersburg serving VKontakte.<\/p>\n
Data centers are vulnerable<\/p>\n
While oil refineries and warehouses are easy prey, data centers are even softer targets \u2014 massive buildings packed with servers and supporting power and cooling infrastructure. Lasting damage can result from a drone carrying a relatively light load of explosives.<\/p>\n
The vulnerability of data centers was exposed by Iran, whose drones hit two Amazon Web Services data centers in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain. AWS said last month it was unable to restore access to the resources and data hosted at two of them.<\/p>\n
Yandex has run drills for an accident that could incapacitate one of its six data centers, but it was caught unprepared when its three key facilities were hit over four days. It wasn\u2019t immediately clear why air defenses near the sites had failed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem in Russia is that they\u2019ve got to cover a big country with air defense and they don\u2019t have enough,\u201d said Nick Reiners, senior geotechnology analyst at Eurasia Group.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s efforts to build a \u2018sovereign internet\u2019 backfire<\/p>\n
Ukraine has stored critical data on servers in allied European countries, helping limit the damage from Russian attacks. But Moscow\u2019s strict digital sovereignty policy requires all data storage at home, making it extremely vulnerable.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause all the infrastructure and all the data is located inside Russia, it\u2019s relatively easier to take down,\u201d Reiners said.<\/p>\n
Klimarev predicted the data center attacks could encourage many top Russian companies to move data abroad, while the authorities could ease their efforts to tighten internet controls to minimize the damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cParadoxically, the strikes on data centers have saved the Russian internet from isolation, as they will now have to move computing assets, most likely, to Europe,\u201d Klimarev said. \u201cIt\u2019s quite likely that many Russian businesses are now roaming the European market to rent computing assets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russians are vexed by service disruptions<\/p>\n
Yandex dominates digital life in Russia and many former Soviet nations. It provides a wide variety of functions, including a search engine, cloud storage, payment apps, geolocation and ride-hailing services, and e-commerce platforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cYandex is kind of like Uber and Amazon and Google and everything rolled into one,\u201d with everything \u201cconcentrated in just a few data centers,\u201d Reiners said. \u201cFrom a strategic perspective, they\u2019re an excellent target.\u201d<\/p>\n
The attacks on Yandex caused unprecedented disruptions, paralyzing payments, online orders, taxi rides and access to personal data.<\/p>\n
Moscow resident Igor Mann said he couldn\u2019t collect an order he placed with Yandex Market, an e-commerce platform. He said he tried using a virtual private network, but \u201cnothing worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taxi driver Pavel Belyavskiy, who gets orders via Yandex\u2019s ride-hailing app, couldn\u2019t connect with passengers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn several orders already, I\u2019ve ended up waiting for a long time and had to cancel the ride because I couldn\u2019t even get in touch with the passenger,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The attacks also caused temporary disruptions at some major companies and banks that rely on Yandex cloud services.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just about convenience \u2014 it\u2019s also about work \u2026 tied to everyday life,\u201d said another Moscow resident, Eduard Malyavko.<\/p>\n
A blow to Russia\u2019s AI ambitions<\/p>\n
Yandex said it restored most key cloud services in the following days as it turned to other data centers in Russia. But the damage to the company\u2019s AI development efforts is widely seen as massive and longer-lasting.<\/p>\n
Yandex has invested in huge data centers as the global AI boom fuels demand for computing power. The company\u2019s three supercomputers used to develop models are ranked among the top 500 in the world. Its most powerful computer \u2014 at the Sasovo data center \u2014 was ranked 19th.<\/p>\n
Yandex didn\u2019t disclose the extent of the strikes\u2019 consequences, but satellite images indicated its data centers sustained serious damage. Some observers noted that fires triggered by the attacks probably seriously damaged high-end chips and other key equipment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this kind of hit, it\u2019s hard to expect that at least something was left intact \u2014 the data centers\u2019 equipment is fragile, demanding and expensive,\u201d Klimarev said. \u201cSoot from the fire is bad for electronics.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Russia already lagged years behind the U.S. and China, \u201cUkraine\u2019s drone strikes will likely still set back Russian AI efforts further,\u201d said Connor Martin, an expert with the Council for Foreign Relations.<\/p>\n
He said in a commentary that Russia likely will struggle to quickly replace the U.S.-designed Nvidia A100 chips powering Yandex\u2019s supercomputers.<\/p>\n
Klimarev also said the global deficit of high-end chips, combined with the sanctions on their delivery to Russia, will make repairs long and costly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure it can be done in half a year, a year, or even at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
Kelvin Chan in London contributed.<\/p>\n
#Ukraines #drones #hit #Russian #data #centers #derails #key #services<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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