Ukraine hits Russian data centres in blow to Moscow's AI capabilities

Key Points:

• In October, Ukrainian drone strikes targeted five Russian data centres belonging to major tech companies Yandex, Sber, and VKontakte, causing widespread disruptions to cloud services, payment systems, and navigation apps across Russia.
• The attacks damaged critical infrastructure supporting much of Russia's consumer internet, with experts warning that restoring these facilities could take months or years and significantly delay Russia's artificial intelligence development.
• Russia has simultaneously been targeting Ukrainian data centres since the start of the conflict, but Ukraine has mitigated impacts by relocating most data to servers in Europe, whereas Russia's concentration of data centres within its borders makes them more vulnerable.
• The strikes highlight the fragility of data centre infrastructure, where even minor damage can cause extensive harm; the damage to Yandex's supercomputers, key to Russia's AI ambitions, is particularly impactful amid Western sanctions and chip shortages.
• Russian data centres also serve intelligence and propaganda functions under laws requiring backdoors for security services, and the attacks may paradoxically push Russian companies to move computing resources abroad, potentially weakening Russia's internet isolation policies.