Timeline: What happened?
October 8 --- Sasovo,Ryazan Region: Ukraine's FP-1 long-range drones hit the site. Fire forced a full suspension. This site housed 2 of Yandex's 3 supercomputers for YandexGPT — Lyapunov and Chervonenkis. Yandex said it is still evaluating if equipment can be restored.
October 9 --- kaluga region: Yandex's largest data center — 63 MW, 3,800 racks. Several modules were completely knocked out. Ukrainian drone maker Firepoint confirmed its drones were used. Yandex shares fell 4% on the Moscow Exchange after this strike.
October 11 --- Vladimir region :The newest site, 50 MW, 2,880 racks, launched March 2026, houses the Galushkin supercomputer. A massive explosion and fire rocked the facility. Yandex Cloud Telegram said infrastructure is unstable and in emergency mode. No injuries, but power restoration at 80%.
On Oct 10, Yandex quietly updated its user agreement to list drone and missile attacks as force majeure.
Why this matters:The first AI data centre war
For two years the war targeted oil refineries. October 2026 marks a shift to data centers.
Russia has been striking Ukrainian data centers in Kyiv for a month. On Oct 8, Zelenskyy said: "We always respond in kind. Russia has been and still is striking our data centers."
For Yandex, this is existential. Yandex is not just search:
- Yandex Cloud — hosts Russian Railways, MegaFon, thousands of startups
- Yandex Go — taxi and delivery for 40M+ users daily
- YandexGPT — Russia's ChatGPT, API used by Russian businesses
Over 80 Yandex Cloud services are down — computing, databases, storage, YandexGPT API. One founder told Reuters his dating app with 8,000 users has been offline for 3 days because his backup is locked inside Yandex Cloud showing "internal error."
What are Lyapunov ,Chervonenkis and Galushkin?
These are Yandex's 3 supercomputers that train YandexGPT, named after Russian mathematicians. Sasovo held two, Vladimir held one. All three are now offline. This is equivalent to OpenAI losing its primary Azure training cluster. Without them, Yandex cannot train new YandexGPT versions for months.
Why Yandex taxis and delivery stopped working
Yandex Go, Lavka, Music and Telemost video all depend on the ru-central1-a zone located in Vladimir. When Vladimir went dark, the dispatch system went dark. Outages were reported in Moscow, St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Perm, Krasnoyarsk, Vladivostok, and also in Serbia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia according to independent outlet Ostorozhno Novosti.
What businesses in Yandex Cloud should do now
Yandex advised clients to activate disaster recovery and move data to other cloud providers. If you host on Yandex Cloud, switch to VK Cloud, Selectel, or EU alternatives. For AI watchers, this is the first time LLM supercomputers have been kinetically destroyed in war. For investors, the Russian Yandex trades only in Moscow after its split to Nebius in Amsterdam — and the 4% drop may be just the start.
FAQ
Did Ukraine really hit Yandex data centres?
Yes. Confirmed by Yandex Cloud Telegram channel and Reuters on Oct 9, 10 and 11, 2026. Vladimir shutdown was confirmed today.
Which Yandex data centres were hit?
Sasovo on Oct 8 — full shutdown, Kaluga on Oct 9 — partial, Vladimir on Oct 11 — full shutdown.
Is Yandex Go working today?
No. Large outages Oct 11-12 across dozens of Russian cities plus Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Serbia. Yandex says services are unstable.
What is yandexGPT?
YandexGPT is Russia's leading large language model, like ChatGPT, trained on the three supercomputers now offline. Its API is currently down.
Is this the first data centre war?
Yes. First confirmed campaign where data centers became primary kinetic targets, following Russian strikes on Ukrainian data hubs in September.
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Sources: Reuters, Yandex Cloud Telegram, Turkiye Today, Astra.