Yandex company attacked by drones in Russia. A fire halted operations at a data center, but the main services continued to function

Yandex, one of Russia’s leading artificial intelligence companies, announced that a drone attack caused a fire at one of its data centers in Russia. The incident led to the suspension of all operations at the affected center, but the main services provided to customers were not interrupted.

The company stated on the Yandex Cloud website that the electricity supply was affected in one of the data center’s “zones.” Customers were advised to use other available zones to avoid potential problems.

Yandex operates YandexGPT, one of Russia’s most advanced generative artificial intelligence models. In the cited information, the company did not provide details about the extent of the damage or any possible casualties.

The attack represents a first in the current conflict, as Ukraine had not previously launched major drone strikes against data centers in Russia. In recent weeks, Russia has repeatedly attacked data centers in Ukraine.