Ukraine's armed forces targeted three of Yandex's five major data centres in Russia over the weekend of Oct. 8-9, 2023, crippling the company’s payment platform and leaving millions unable to access their money.
Irina, a St Petersburg blogger, told NBC News she had been unable to pay her rent or buy food for her child after the outages began, a story echoed by a barista in Moscow and three taxi drivers who lost earnings and could not view their balances.
Yandex said on Oct. 9 that its data centres—its "iron heart"—were under repair and that it was working to restore services, but the company did not provide a timeline for full recovery.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed calls for state aid as premature, stressing that Yandex was "strong and powerful," while Russia also faced recent strikes on Sberbank and VK data centres.
The attacks follow Russia’s own drone raids on Ukrainian data infrastructure, a retaliation that Zelensky described as a measure to keep the enemy from cutting off internet services. The U.S. has urged Ukraine to limit strikes on energy assets, making data centres a new target.
Yandex has pledged to bring services back online, but it remains unclear whether the Russian government will offer compensation to affected users or businesses.