Ukraine struck a Yandex data center in Russia’s Ryazan oblast and a major oil refinery in Bashkortostan on the night of October 8, according to Ukrainian monitoring channels and eyewitness footage.
Ukrainian monitoring channels Exilenova+, VChK-OGPU and Astra reported that the Yandex data center in the city of Sasovo was hit overnight.
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Yandex is one of Russia’s largest technology companies and the country’s dominant search engine, offering services such as cloud computing, online storage, email, maps and ride-sharing services. Its data centers support the company’s online and cloud services.
The Sasovo plant is located on the grounds of the Sasta factory, which manufactures metalworking machines and supplies equipment to Russian defense industry companies.
Eyewitness footage showed a large fire at the site after the attack.
Yandex acknowledged an “incident” and said some of its services were temporarily unavailable. Users have reported problems accessing Yandex disk and Yandex documents.
“We will provide updates on the recovery process,” the company said.
The Sasovo data center opened in 2011. As of 2022, city administration head Yevgenia Rubtsova said Yandex has invested more than 6 billion rubles ($75 million) in the facility over 11 years.
An oil refinery also affected
The Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat oil refinery in Russia’s Bashkortostan was also targeted overnight, Exilenova+ reported.
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Astra, citing photos and videos from eyewitnesses, reported a fire in the refinery area.
The plant can process up to 10 million tonnes of hydrocarbons per year and produces more than 150 types of products, including gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, bitumen, polyethylene, styrene and ammonia.
The refinery has previously been the target of Ukrainian drone strikes.
A fire broke out at the plant following an attack on August 13, while a strike on July 14 forced the complete suspension of oil processing, according to previous reports. Ukrainian drones also damaged primary crude processing units at the refinery in 2023.
Ukraine announces new long-range strikes
The reported strikes come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he approved a plan for long-range attacks against Russia in October.
Zelensky said Ukraine would respond to Russian attacks on its civilian infrastructure by targeting corresponding Russian facilities.
These strikes also follow a Russian attack on the Datagroup data center in kyiv in late September.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed the facility processed and transmitted intelligence data for the Ukrainian military.
kyiv is increasingly targeting Russian energy, industrial and military infrastructure with long-range drone strikes, seeking to disrupt systems supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine.
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