Yandex says a second data center was hit by drones in two days

Yandex, Russia’s dominant technology and AI company, says a drone attack has disabled modules at its data center in the Kaluga region.

The Kaluga incident, confirmed on October 9, 2026, followed an October 8 strike on Yandex’s facility in Sasovo, in the Ryazan region. That earlier attack sparked a fire and brought operations there to a complete stop.

What got hit, and how big it is

Kaluga is not a minor outpost. It is Yandex’s largest data facility.

The site covers approximately 130,000 square meters. It supports more than 3,800 server racks and was designed for a capacity of 63 megawatts.

Yandex reported no casualties from the attacks. The research describes the Kaluga center as severely damaged, with Yandex stating that modules at the facility were knocked offline.

Kaluga Governor Vladislav Shapsha said nine people were injured during regional drone strikes on the nights of October 8 and 9. He did not say whether any of those injuries were connected to the Yandex site.

The Sasovo strike and the AI problem

The Sasovo facility houses two of the three supercomputers the company relies on to train YandexGPT, its flagship AI model. The machines are named Lyapunov and Chervonenkis.

The fire at Sasovo halted operations entirely. Yandex has not provided a timeline for when the site might return to service.

The disruption also reached beyond Yandex itself. Major clients, including Russian Railways and mobile operator MegaFon, were affected after the Sasovo attack.

Market reaction and the broader conflict

Investors noticed. Yandex shares fell approximately 4% on the Moscow Exchange after news of the second attack broke.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky framed the drone strikes as retaliation. He characterized them as a response to Russian military actions targeting data centers in Ukraine.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.