Ukraine struck a Yandex data center in Russia’s Ryazan Oblast and a major oil refinery in Bashkortostan overnight on Oct. 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 including cloud computing, online storage, email, maps and ride-hailing. Its data centers support the company’s online and cloud services.
The Sasovo facility is located on the grounds of the Sasta plant, which manufactures metalworking machinery and supplies equipment to Russian defense industry companies.
Eyewitness footage showed a large fire at the site following the attack.
Yandex acknowledged an “incident” and said some of its services were temporarily unavailable. Users 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. In 2022, the city’s administration head Yevgenia Rubtsova said Yandex had invested more than 6 billion rubles ($75 million) in the facility over 11 years.
Oil refinery also hit
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 area of the refinery.
The plant can process up to 10 million tons of hydrocarbon feedstock annually and produces more than 150 types of products, including gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, bitumen, polyethylene, styrene and ammonia.
The refinery has previously been targeted by Ukrainian drone strikes.
A fire broke out at the plant following an Aug. 13 attack, while a July 14 strike 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 signals more long-range strikes
The reported strikes come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had approved a plan for long-range attacks against Russia in October.
Zelensky has said Ukraine will respond to Russian attacks on its civilian infrastructure by targeting corresponding Russian facilities.
The strikes also follow a Russian attack on the Datagroup data center in Kyiv in late September.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed the facility processed and transmitted intelligence data for the Ukrainian military.
Kyiv has increasingly targeted Russian energy, industrial and military-linked infrastructure with long-range drone strikes, seeking to disrupt systems supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine.