Drones hit Yandex data center in Vladimir, Russia, third strike on company in three days
Drones attacked a Yandex data center in Vladimir, Russia, overnight on October 11, knocking out power in Yandex Cloud's ru-central1-a zone and prompting the company to halt operations. The strike disrupted more than 80 Yandex Cloud services and widely used consumer products including Yandex Music, the Alisa voice assistant, the Telemost video calling service, and Yandex Dom (Yandex Home). It is the third reported drone attack on a Yandex data center in roughly three days, following strikes on sites in Sasovo, Ryazan Oblast, on October 8 and in Kaluga on October 9.
Key points
- Drones struck a Yandex data center in Vladimir, Vladimir Oblast, overnight on October 11.
- Around 4 a.m., Yandex reported a power supply disruption in its ru-central1-a availability zone, which is physically located at the Vladimir facility.
- More than 80 Yandex Cloud services were affected, along with consumer products including Alisa, Yandex Music, Telemost and Yandex Dom.
- Yandex said it was ceasing operations at the Vladimir site.
- A fire broke out at the data center; two substations were knocked out, leaving around 5,000 local residents without electricity, according to regional governor Oleksandr Avdieiev.
- It is the third reported drone attack on a Yandex data center in three days, following Sasovo on October 8 and Kaluga on October 9.
- Russia has five main Yandex data centers; two in Mytishchi and Ivanteyevka are so far undamaged, and one facility abroad in Mäntsälä, Finland serves the international market.
Why it matters
Three strikes on Yandex facilities in three days point to a sustained campaign against Russia's largest homegrown tech company's infrastructure, taking more than 80 cloud services and several flagship consumer products offline simultaneously. The attack also spilled beyond Yandex's own systems, cutting power to roughly 5,000 residents and triggering a fire at the site, while Yandex's decision to halt operations at Vladimir and to formally classify drone strikes as force majeure underscores both the operational and legal pressure the company is now under. With two of its five Russian data centers undamaged and one abroad in Finland still serving the international market, the Vladimir hit further narrows the geographic base Yandex can draw on.
What happened
Drones attacked a Yandex data center in Vladimir, Vladimir Oblast, Russia, overnight on October 11. Around 4 a.m., Yandex reported a power supply disruption in the ru-central1-a availability zone, which is physically hosted at the Vladimir facility, located in the Enerhetyk microdistrict. The outage brought down more than 80 Yandex Cloud services covering computing resources, databases, storage, developer tools, and AI offerings including the YandexGPT API. Consumer products were also hit, with Yandex Music, the Alisa voice assistant, the Telemost video calling service, and Yandex Dom (Yandex Home) all stopping work or experiencing disruptions. A fire broke out at the data center, and regional governor Oleksandr Avdieiev said two substations were knocked out, cutting electricity to around 5,000 residents. Yandex subsequently announced it was ceasing operations at the Vladimir facility. The strike came after drones hit Yandex's Sasovo data center in Ryazan Oblast on October 8, sparking a fire, and its Kaluga data center, described as the company's newest and largest, on October 9.
How Ukrainian sources describe it
All supplied sources are Ukrainian. They describe the Vladimir strike as a deliberate drone attack on a Russian tech facility and draw explicit parallels with Russian strikes that previously knocked Ukrainian data centers such as Omega Telecom and DLine.ua in Kyiv offline. Several outlets highlight the scale of the disruption and lay stress on the fact that this is the third Yandex data center hit in roughly three days, presenting it as part of a sustained, coordinated campaign rather than an isolated incident. Coverage also foregrounds Russia's refusal to officially comment on the strike, the OSINT channels Supernova+, Exilenova+ and Astra as the main sources of attribution, and on-the-ground effects such as the loss of power to about 5,000 residents.
Where reporting differs
Sources differ on when Yandex opened the new Vladimir data center next to the original 2017 site: some report March 2026 and others March 2025. Most outlets do not officially attribute the strike and rely on OSINT channels and Telegram reports; only a minority of sources frame it directly as a Ukrainian action.
Background
Yandex's ru-central1-a availability zone is physically hosted at the company's Vladimir data center in the Enerhetyk microdistrict, the first such site in the city, operating since 2017. In March 2026, a new 40 MW, 2,800-rack facility was opened next to the existing site, expanding local capacity. The Vladimir hit follows two earlier drone strikes on Yandex infrastructure: on October 8, drones struck the Sasovo data center in Ryazan Oblast, causing a fire; Yandex later warned it could not confirm equipment could be restored there and removed data centers in four Russian regions from its maps. On October 9, a drone attack hit Yandex's Kaluga data center, which is described as the company's newest and largest in Russia. Russia has five main Yandex data centers and one abroad in Mäntsälä, Finland, serving the international market; two Russian facilities, in Mytishchi (Moscow Oblast) and Ivanteyevka, remain undamaged. Russia has previously struck Ukrainian data centers including Omega Telecom and DLine.ua in Kyiv, both of which stopped operating after the attacks, and some sources frame the Vladimir strike as part of a Ukrainian mirror response against Russian digital infrastructure since late September. After earlier incidents, Yandex added drone attacks to its list of force-majeure events.