Russian Defence Ministry to protect data centres as Yandex reels from Ukrainian airstrikes
Maksut Shadayev, Russia’s minister of digital development, communications, and mass media, announced plans on Monday for his ministry to develop measures to protect Russian data centres with the help of the Defence Ministry, just days after a series of devastating Ukrainian drone strikes forced Russian tech giant Yandex to take numerous services offline.
Addressing a joint meeting of the State Duma committees on information policy and digital development in Moscow, Shadayev described Yandex as having come under “an unprecedented attack”, adding that the company being able to continue its basic operations reflected well on the “necessary attention” his ministry had paid to preparing for such strikes.
Repairing the damage done to the three Yandex data centres targeted by Ukrainian drones at sites near Moscow could take as long as six months, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported on Monday.
Hobbling Yandex’s operations by attacking the company’s data centres could impede the Kremlin’s ongoing attempts to ring fence the Russian internet and force the Russian authorities to ease restrictions on foreign internet traffic,
However, according to internet freedom campaigner Mikhail Klimarev, Ukraine’s successful hobbling of Yandex’s operations could force the Russian authorities to ease their restrictions on foreign internet traffic, and impede the Kremlin’s ongoing attempts to create a Chinese-style firewall around the Russian internet.
The attacks could also have significant ramifications for those outside Europe. According to Czech MEP Tomáš Zdechovský, online activity among supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany plummeted following last week’s strikes, suggesting that many vocal AfD supporters are in fact Russian bots.
On Monday, Yandex shares fell nearly 6% during morning trading on the Moscow Stock Exchange following an attack on a third data centre in the city of Vladimir, 200km east of the Russian capital.
