Three Yandex Cloud Data Centers Down After Drone Strikes in Russia
Physical damage from drone attacks has disabled two facilities and impaired a third, causing widespread outages for cloud services and storage users.
Key points
- Yandex confirmed three data centers in Russia were damaged by drone attacks, with two fully offline and one partially impaired.
- Services including Yandex Disk, cloud consoles, databases, and Kubernetes are experiencing significant availability and performance issues.
- The company has not provided a restoration timeline and warns that technical support channels may also be unstable.
Physical drone attacks have severely damaged three Yandex Cloud data centers in Russia, causing widespread service disruptions for consumers and businesses. According to Cyber Security News, two facilities have stopped operating completely, while a third has lost part of its infrastructure. This physical destruction has left many users unable to access their cloud files or run critical business services on the platform.
The risk
The first strike hit the Sasovo data center during the night of October 7 to 8, 2026, causing serious damage that halted all operations at the site. A second attack struck the Kaluga facility on October 9, disabling portions of its infrastructure. A third incident targeted the Vladimir site overnight on October 11, stopping operations there as well. Yandex reported no injuries across these events. Emergency teams and company specialists are working at the damaged sites, but assessing equipment remains difficult. The company stated it cannot provide a reliable timeline for restoration.
Who is exposed
The outage affects Yandex Disk users, with some reporting missing thumbnails, failed downloads, and HTTP errors such as 504 Gateway Timeout and 500 Internal Server Error. These issues began on October 8. While failed downloads do not prove file deletion, it remains unclear if any customer data has been permanently lost. Yandex has not addressed data loss questions in its status updates, according to BleepingComputer. The disruption extends to businesses running services on Yandex Cloud across the platform.
Cost and compliance
Yandex Cloud’s console, API, identity management, container registry, databases, S3 storage, and Kubernetes are available but suffer from performance or availability issues. Compute, AI Studio, and security services are only partly available, while Monium remains offline. These conditions reflect an update cited in an October 12 report and do not guarantee current availability. Yandex described remaining cloud resources as unstable and stated the platform is operating in emergency mode. The company urged customers to use alternative disaster recovery plans and warned that technical support channels could also be unstable.
What should you do?
Managers should immediately verify the status of their critical workloads and activate alternative disaster recovery plans if primary services are unavailable. Teams should monitor official status pages for updates, as technical support channels may be unstable. Users should avoid assuming data loss based on failed downloads, but should prepare for potential extended downtime.
The background in plain language
When physical infrastructure is damaged, cloud services can fail regardless of software security measures. Teams usually rely on geographic redundancy to survive such events. Check whether your critical data is stored in multiple regions. Understand that physical attacks bypass digital defenses. Verify your backup systems are independent of the affected provider. Ensure your disaster recovery plans include scenarios for total site loss.
Background: Disaster recovery plans
Build recovery plans around immutable backups, documented runbooks, and frequent chaos testing. Verify restoration speed, not just storage capacity. Isolate critical systems to limit blast radius. Practice recovery procedures regularly to ensure staff competence during high-pressure incidents.
Read the full guide: Disaster Recovery Plan Best Practices for Resilient Systems
What to do and how to stay safe: Yandex Cloud
- Verify if your critical data resides in the affected regions and activate alternative disaster recovery plans if primary services are unavailable.
- Monitor official status pages for updates, as technical support channels may be unstable during emergency operations.
- Avoid assuming data loss based on failed downloads or HTTP errors, but prepare for potential extended downtime while assessments continue.
- Ensure your backup systems are independent of the affected provider to maintain access to critical files during physical infrastructure outages.
Step-by-step guide: Difference Between Logging and Monitoring: Cloud Security Architecture
General security guidance from the Vector Tribune newsroom. It is not confirmed advice from the organisations named in this story.
Frequently asked questions
Has Yandex confirmed if any customer data was permanently lost?
No, Yandex has not addressed whether any customer data has been permanently lost in its status updates, according to BleepingComputer.
Which specific Yandex Cloud services are currently affected?
The console, API, identity management, container registry, databases, S3 storage, and Kubernetes have availability issues, while Compute, AI Studio, and security services are partly available.
Is there a timeline for restoring full service?
Yandex stated it could not provide a reliable restoration timeline as engineers work to assess equipment at the damaged sites.
