Why Data Centres Are Modern Wartime Targets: How Ukraine's Strike Left Russians Without Access To Bank Accounts

Russia-Ukraine War: Ukraine’s ongoing attacks on Russian technology infrastructure, including data centres run by internet giant Yandex, have disrupted digital services used by millions of people. Everyday tasks, from booking a taxi, ordering food, to accessing money or personal files, have been disrupted across the country, NBC News reported.

The strikes, carried out over several days in October, were the first publicly reported attacks on Russian data centres, according to the report.

While several services have slowly restored, some users have reported difficulties accessing their money and savings through Yandex Pay. Taxi drivers have also faced problems checking their earnings and withdrawing their payments.

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What Is Yandex?

Yandex is one of Russia’s biggest technology companies and is often compared to Google. It runs a wide range of services including search, maps, taxi bookings, food delivery, cloud storage and digital payments. Its systems also support other third-party platforms, so any outage can have a wide impact. On October 9, Yandex said no employees had been hurt and that work was underway to restore services.

“Data centres are the iron heart of Yandex,” the company said. “Their operation is critical for services that have become part of people’s everyday lives.”

How Are Russians Being Affected?

Users reported problems booking taxis, ordering food and opening files stored online. Some people even found they could not get into their homes after digital keys stopped working.

The outage of Yandex Pay, the company’s digital payment service, left some users unable to access their money and savings for days. Three Moscow taxi drivers told NBC News they could not check their earnings or withdraw payments while the system was down. One driver said he had stopped
working until the problem was fixed.

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Why Is Ukraine Targeting Data Centres?

Analysts believe the attacks may be aimed at making ordinary Russians feel the effects of the war. Keir Giles of Chatham House told NBC News that bringing the impact of the conflict into daily life has been one of Ukraine’s goals.

Yandex is not the only company hit. Data centres belonging to Russian bank Sberbank and technology firm VK have also been targeted.

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was too early to talk about financial help for affected users. Russia’s Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev said officials were looking at ways to better protect data centres after what he called an “unprecedented attack.”