Ukrainian forces conducted a drone strike on a data center belonging to Yandex, Russia's top technology company, on Thursday. The attack targeted a facility in the city of Ryazan, roughly 120 miles southeast of Moscow. Yandex confirmed that a fire erupted following the strike, prompting a complete suspension of operations at the data center. Some of the company's services remain unavailable to users.
The assault marks the first known Ukrainian strike on a Russian data center, according to Reuters. This development comes after Moscow recently targeted Ukrainian data centers in several attacks. Yandex, often referred to as Russia's counterpart to Google, operates a range of services, including YandexGPT, a leading generative AI model in the country.
Ukraine has not officially confirmed responsibility for the attack, a common practice for strikes on Russian territory. The company communicated the suspension of operations through the Russian state news agency TASS, indicating the severity of the disruption.