Ukraine Is Wiping Out Data Centers Across the Border
Ukrainian drone strikes have damaged three major Yandex data centers as well as facilities serving Sberbank and VKontakte (the country’s equivalent to Facebook), disrupting cloud services, banking, e-commerce, ride-hailing and other digital services across Russia. The attacks may deal a longer-lasting blow to Russia’s AI ambitions: Yandex’s affected facilities housed its three top-500 supercomputers, and experts say sanctions and shortages of high-end Nvidia chips could make repairs difficult or even take years. “This effectively sets Russia far behind in the AI race, “said Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society activist group. Fortune reports: Data centers are the latest targets of aerial campaigns waged by both sides against each other’s vital infrastructure. […] Kyiv’s attacks on Russian data centers closely followed Moscow’s recent strikes on data centers in Ukraine, which disrupted the internet and TV broadcasts. On Oct. 8, Ukrainian drones hit a Yandex data center in Sasovo in the Ryazan region that houses two of the company’s three supercomputers. A data center in Kaluga was hit a day later and the one in Vladimir was struck Oct. 11.
The data center and AI hub for Sberbank was hit Oct. 14 in Balakovo in the Saratov region, and four days later, Kyiv struck a data center in St. Petersburg serving VKontakte. While oil refineries and warehouses are easy prey, data centers are even softer targets — massive buildings packed with servers and supporting power and cooling infrastructure. Lasting damage can result from a drone carrying a relatively light load of explosives.
[…] Ukraine has stored critical data on servers in allied European countries, helping limit the damage from Russian attacks. But Moscow’s strict digital sovereignty policy requires all data storage at home, making it extremely vulnerable. “Because all the infrastructure and all the data is located inside Russia, it’s relatively easier to take down,” [said Nick Reiners, senior geotechnology analyst at Eurasia Group]. Klimarev predicted the data center attacks could encourage many top Russian companies to move data abroad, while the authorities could ease their efforts to tighten internet controls to minimize the damage.
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