Third Yandex data centre knocked out after reported drone attack in Vladimir; Yandex Go goes down in Russia and Serbia

Yandex Cloud reported power outages on Sunday, October 11 in the ru-central1-a availability zone, which corresponds to the company’s data centre in Vladimir. “There are power interruptions in the ru-central1-a availability zone. The team is working to resolve the issue,” the company said on its official Telegram channel. According to the Kyiv Independent, it is the third near-consecutive day of attacks on Yandex data centres. The Ukrainian outlet also cites Russian state news agency TASS, which quoted the company as saying the Vladimir facility has been completely shut down.

The independent Russian outlet ASTRA reported that the outages in Vladimir followed warnings of a drone attack in the region, while Ukrainian monitoring channels circulated images purportedly showing a fire near the facility. The Kyiv Independent notes that it could not independently verify either the images or the extent of the damage.

Yandex Go down

Yandex Go users across Russia reported that they could not order taxis, with similar problems recorded in Serbia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia, according to the independent outlet Ostorozhno Novosti. The Yandex Pro app, used by drivers and couriers, was also down, and employees had trouble accessing internal support systems. Users also reported disruptions to the company’s smart-home services.

Ryazan, Kaluga and now Vladimir

The incident follows two strikes that Yandex itself has publicly acknowledged. On October 8, a drone attack caused a fire at its data centre in Sasovo, in Russia’s Ryazan region, forcing it to suspend operations completely. On October 9, its data centre in Kaluga was hit, disabling several modules. The company described its data centres as critical infrastructure for its services.

On October 10, Yandex updated its user agreement to add drone and missile attacks to the circumstances of force majeure that can release it from contractual obligations. On October 8, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine was responding to Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centres: “We always respond in kind.”

And the Rostov terminal

Earlier the same night, ASTRA reported, based on open-source analysis, a fire at the Yug Rusi oil-loading terminal in Rostov-on-Don, which is linked to the Novoshakhtinsk refinery. That report has not been independently verified either. Strikes on Russian energy infrastructure continue even though Donald Trump has demanded that the attacks on Russian refineries stop, while data centres are now being added to the list of targets.