Ukraine takes aim at Russia’s AI data infrastructure

Ukrainian drone strikes have partly disabled an AI data centre operated by Russian digital giant Yandex.

The strike on Friday followed an attack on another of the company’s data hubs the previous day, appearing to signal that Ukraine’s military campaign is widening its scope to target Russia’s technology infrastructure. Moscow has previously targeted data hubs inside Ukraine.

Yandex, which is heavily involved in Russia’s AI development efforts, said its data centre in the Kaluga region southwest of Moscow had been struck by Ukrainian drones and partly put out of action.

A day earlier, a Ukrainian attack shut down a major data hub in Sasovo in the Ryazan region, where two of the three supercomputers used to develop the company’s AI models are housed.

Yandex, which operates under close government observation, said the attacks had struck at the core of its operations and that it was trying to maintain its services.

“Our teams are working day and night to keep services running and help those affected by the incident. Right now this is our most important task, but unfortunately it is not an easy one,” it said in a statement.

The company operates numerous apps that many Russians consider essential, as well as social media networks.

Russia has struck several Ukrainian data centres and telecommunications infrastructure facilities over the past month, including targets in central Kyiv.

Damage from the attacks has forced some services to suspend operations. Roughly 100,000 households suffered temporary internet outages after an attack.

“We always respond in mirror-like fashion,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday, following the Ryazan strike. “You all know, they have been hitting and continue to hit our data centres. We are responding. I can’t share all the details.”

Missiles and energy

Kyiv also continues its campaign targeting Russia’s missile production and energy infrastructure, hoping to reduce the air strikes against which it has struggled to defend, as well as to hurt Moscow’s economic ability to wage war.

Ukraine’s military said it had hit three facilities involved in missile production across Russia overnight, including a factory in the Tver region making missile components and a centre for disassembling intercontinental ballistic missiles in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

In a statement on Telegram, the General Staff said the Russian facility for the “liquidation of intercontinental ballistic missiles” was hit to degrade Russia’s ability to source explosives and rocket fuel.

Nizhny Novgorod’s governor said that one serviceman was killed repelling the attack while drone debris caused “minimal” damage to infrastructure.

A drone attack sparked a fire at a plant in Redkino in the Tver region, but it was quickly extinguished, the local governor said.

The Ukhta oil refinery belonging to the state giant Lukoil, 1,900km (1,180 miles) from the Ukrainian border, was also struck, according to Zelenskyy.

Meanwhile, Russia’s air campaign has continued to hit civilians, despite the Kremlin’s insistence that it only attacks military targets.

Overnight strikes killed one and injured seven in the city of Zaporizhzhia, regional defence official Ivan Fedorov said on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia also struck a cargo vessel in Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Mykolaiv, the Ministry of Defence in Moscow said, according to state news agency RIA Novosti. The ministry said the vessel was being used to supply the Ukrainian military.