GBAF Logo
Global Banking & Finance Awards® 2026 Nominations open, free to enter Nominate now →
Russia's Yandex says unclear whether data centre can be restored after drone strike - Finance news and analysis from Global Banking & Finance Review
Finance

Russia's Yandex says unclear whether data centre can be restored after drone strike

Published by Global Banking & Finance Review

Posted on October 8, 2026

2 min read

· Last updated: October 8, 2026

Add as preferred source on Google

Uncertainty as Yandex Assesses Drone Strike Damage at Sasovo Data Centre

Yandex Data Centre Attack: Damage Assessment and Impact

Initial Incident and Immediate Response

MOSCOW, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Russian technology and AI company Yandex said on Thursday it could not yet determine whether equipment at a data centre hit by a Ukrainian drone attack could be restored.

Fire and Suspension of Operations

Yandex said earlier that the attack on its Sasovo hub, one of its five large data centres, caused a fire and forced it to suspend operations at the site, which hosts tens of thousands of servers.

Official Statement on Damage

"The scale of the damage to the infrastructure is still being assessed," Yandex said in a statement. "For the moment, we cannot confirm whether it is possible to restore the data centre equipment in Sasovo."

Service Disruptions and Ongoing Assessment

The company earlier said some of its services were unavailable and specialist teams were at the site assessing the damage.

Supercomputers and AI Model Development

Two of Yandex's three supercomputers, used to develop its AI model, are housed at the Sasovo data centre. Yandex has not said whether they were damaged.

Reporting Credits

(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov. Editing by Mark Trevelyan, Ron Popeski and Mark Potter)

Key Takeaways

  • A drone strike on October 8, 2026, hit Yandex’s Sasovo data centre in Ryazan region, causing a fire and halting operations across one of its five major hubs (investing.com)
  • The facility houses two of Yandex’s three Nvidia A100‑based supercomputers—“Chervonenkis” and “Lyapunov”—critical for training its YandexGPT AI model; their status remains unknown (meduza.io)
  • The attack triggered widespread service outages affecting Yandex Cloud, Yandex Disk, Mail and other dependent platforms, with tens of thousands of user complaints; recovery efforts are ongoing (meduza.io)

References

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to Yandex's data centre in Sasovo?
Yandex's Sasovo data centre was hit by a Ukrainian drone attack, causing a fire and suspension of operations.
Can the damaged Yandex data centre be restored?
Yandex has not yet determined if the Sasovo data centre equipment can be restored and is still assessing the damage.
Which services are affected by the data centre shutdown?
Some Yandex services were unavailable following the suspension of operations at the Sasovo data centre.
Are Yandex's AI supercomputers affected by the attack?
Two of Yandex's three supercomputers are at Sasovo, but Yandex has not confirmed if they were damaged.
How many major data centres does Yandex operate?
Yandex operates five major data centres, including the facility at Sasovo.

Tags

Related Articles

More from Finance

Explore more articles in the Finance category