Second Strike in 48 Hours: What Happened to Yandex's Data Center in Russia?

A data center belonging to Russian tech giant "Yandex" suffered severe damage due to a Ukrainian drone attack, according to a statement issued by the company on Friday. This incident marks the second direct targeting of the company's facilities within a period not exceeding two days.

Details of Damage in Kaluga

The company confirmed in its statement that parts of the infrastructure of the data center located in the Kaluga region were clearly damaged, leading to the complete outage of several operational units. "Yandex," known as "Russia's Google," warned of potential disruptions to some of its digital services during the assessment of the final extent of losses.

For his part, the governor of the Kaluga region stated that the attack targeting the city's infrastructure resulted in human injuries and material damage. The governor clarified that nine people were injured, five of whom were transported to hospitals for treatment, with their conditions described as stable.

Mutual Infrastructure Bombing Campaign

These successive attacks may indicate the beginning of a new bombing campaign launched by Kyiv against internet infrastructure inside Russian territory. This escalation comes weeks after Moscow began targeting similar data centers located in Ukraine.

"Yandex" operates the main search engine in the Russian language, which enjoys widespread use in the country for multiple services including taxis and delivery. The company had previously announced a fire at another of its data centers in Sasovo, Ryazan region (central), during the night preceding the latest attack.

That fire represented the first strike of its kind targeting the company's facilities inside Russian territory. The attack then caused a widespread service outage during daylight hours, preventing users from accessing websites related to major transport services and online shopping platforms.