Ukraine targets ‘Russia’s Google’ as the internet becomes a new front line

“Something is constantly breaking, something is constantly not working,” 31-year-old Anton from St. Petersburg says. He came home one night to darkness. His smart bulbs were not turning on.

The bulbs are powered by Yandex, a Russian technology company that provides internet- related services and digital products including cloud, search, maps, AI, ride-hailing and food delivery – an ecosystem akin to Google, Uber and Amazon combined.

“It’s a strange feeling when you’re sitting in a dark room and don’t really have a way to turn the lights on. It felt like a power outage, just for a rather unusual reason,” he told CNN.

Since October 8, Ukrainian attacks have damaged three of the five major data centers powering Yandex’s operations, disrupting the daily lives of millions of users. Across Russia and neighboring countries such as Kazakhstan and Belarus, outages have affected services ranging from online payments and business operations to search, navigation, ride-hailing and food delivery.

The strikes expose the vulnerabilities of Russia’s domestic digital economy, which Moscow has encouraged to reduce reliance on Western technology amid biting sanctions and corporate withdrawals following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but in which data centers have emerged as an Achilles’ Heel.

Gleb Garanich/Reuters

Kyiv has framed the attacks as retaliation for Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centers in September – attacks the Russian Defense Ministry mockingly described as a “digital detox” – underscoring how critical digital infrastructure has become another front line in the war.

For Anton, a history teacher, who gave only his first name for privacy and safety reasons, this was yet another reason for his weariness of what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation” – now in its fifth year.

Over the last year, the Kremlin has also taken to introducing its own internet blackouts for “security” reasons, clamped down on VPNs and blocked popular messaging apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp.

“Every time you run into something like this, it’s incredibly irritating. In my case, every time I just think about how sick and tired I am of (President Vladimir) Putin,” Anton told CNN. He added that it seems to him that people around him don’t blame Ukraine when these attacks happen but rather think “when is all this finally going to end?”

“There’s this general fatigue. Just fatigue from the war in general. Every time it makes me think again: Damn, this is all so exhausting. It’s really stupid that we’re living under these conditions,” he said.

Maksim Konstantinov/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

Russians are largely shielded from the deadly horrors of the front lines, but Ukraine has sought to shatter the illusion that the consequences of war are far removed through drone strikes deep inside its territory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described these strikes as “long-range sanctions” for the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine.

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

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They have had an impact. Putin himself has acknowledged as much in public statements. Attacks on oil refineries have led to widespread fuel shortages, while strikes on warehouses operated by Russia’s largest online retailers, Wildberries and Ozon, have caused chaos for micro-entrepreneurs who rely on their networks.

Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, also reported an attack on its data center in Balakovo, Saratov Region on Wednesday. The Kremlin, meanwhile, has placed the onus on private businesses to protect their critical infrastructure from Ukrainian drone attacks.

A 33-year-old taxi driver in Moscow told CNN he and other drivers had encountered problems with the Yandex Pro app which they use to receive and manage rides, after the third attack on a Yandex data center on October 11 in the Vladimir region. The driver asked to remain anonymous out of concerns for his livelihood.

“At first, the app began malfunctioning: No orders would come through for hours, and when they did, they often contained errors. For example, Yandex could send four different cars and drivers to the same order. Even after arriving at the pickup point and calling the passenger, drivers would find out that the passenger had already left in another taxi,” he recalled.

Anastasia Barashkova/Reuters

He said the most serious issue was that drivers could not withdraw money they had earned, making it difficult for them to pay for car rentals and fuel. He ultimately had to return his rental car to the taxi fleet because he could not afford to keep driving and not earning, while still paying for the vehicle.

“For many drivers, this isn’t just a technical glitch - it’s a question of whether they can continue working and supporting themselves,” he told CNN.

Tatiana, a Moscow resident who asked CNN to use a pseudonym, said she woke up on Tuesday to discover savings of 1.5 million rubles (around 17,830 USD) were no longer visible on her Yandex Pay account – Russia’s equivalent to Apple Savings, which stopped working after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. She’d been saving for a car.

“The panic got the better of me, and I cried my eyes out. I was preparing myself for the thought that I might never see that money again.” Tatiana said she is hoping for the best.

Yandex said in a statement that customers’ money was safe, and it is working on restoring services to the app after the attacks on the three data centers.

Ukrainian defense company Fire Point trolled Yandex on X in response to a statement from the tech giant’s head of fintech division, Dima Pirogov.

“Dima, have you tried turning it off and on again,” Fire Point replied.

As Ukraine faces pressure from its key ally, the United States, to halt strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure and keep Russian diesel flowing to global markets, the message from Kyiv is clear: It still has ways to make life uncomfortable for the Kremlin.

“总是出问题，总是出故障，”来自圣彼得堡的31岁男子安东说道。一天晚上，他回到家发现一片漆黑。他的智能灯泡都打不开了。

这些灯泡由俄罗斯科技公司 Yandex 提供技术支持。Yandex 提供互联网相关服务和数字产品，包括云服务、搜索、地图、人工智能、网约车和外卖——其生态系统类似于谷歌、优步和亚马逊的结合体。

“当你坐在黑暗的房间里，却又无法打开灯时，那种感觉很奇怪。感觉就像停电了一样，只是原因比较特殊，”他告诉 CNN。

自10月8日以来，乌克兰发动的网络攻击已导致Yandex五大数据中心中的三个受损，严重影响了数百万用户的日常生活。在俄罗斯及其邻国（如哈萨克斯坦和白俄罗斯），网络中断波及范围广泛，涵盖在线支付、商业运营、搜索、导航、网约车和外卖等服务。

这些打击暴露了俄罗斯国内数字经济的脆弱性。在全面入侵乌克兰后，莫斯科一直鼓励俄罗斯减少对西方技术的依赖，并实施严厉制裁，导致企业纷纷撤离。然而，数据中心却成为了俄罗斯数字经济的阿喀琉斯之踵。

格列布·加拉尼奇/路透社

基辅方面将此次袭击定性为对俄罗斯9月份袭击乌克兰数据中心的报复——俄罗斯国防部嘲讽地将此次袭击描述为“数字排毒”——这凸显了关键数字基础设施已成为这场战争的另一个前线。

对于历史老师安东（出于隐私和安全原因，他只透露了自己的名字）来说，这又是一个让他对克里姆林宫所谓的“特殊军事行动”（现在已经进行了五年）感到厌倦的原因。

过去一年来，克里姆林宫也以“安全”为由，开始自行实施互联网封锁，打压 VPN，并封锁了 Telegram 和 WhatsApp 等热门通讯应用。

“每次遇到这种事，都让人无比恼火。对我来说，每次遇到这种事，我都会想到我对（弗拉基米尔）普京总统有多么厌烦，”安东告诉CNN。他还补充说，在他看来，周围的人在这些袭击发生时并不责怪乌克兰，而是在想“这一切什么时候才能结束？”

“大家都很疲惫，主要是战争带来的疲惫。每次想到这一点，我都会想：该死，这一切都太累人了。我们生活在这样的环境下，真是太愚蠢了。”他说。

Maksim Konstantinov/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

俄罗斯民众在很大程度上免受前线惨烈战火的侵扰，但乌克兰却试图通过深入其境内的无人机袭击，打破战争后果远在天边的幻想。乌克兰总统泽连斯基将这些袭击描述为对克里姆林宫在乌克兰行动的“远程制裁”。

叶夫根尼·马洛列特卡/美联社

特朗普在乌克兰问题上的新一轮对抗远比星链计划更具深远意义。

这些袭击确实产生了影响。普京本人也在公开声明中承认了这一点。对炼油厂的袭击导致了大范围的燃料短缺，而对俄罗斯最大的两家在线零售商Wildberries和Ozon运营的仓库的袭击，则给依赖其网络的微型企业家造成了混乱。

俄罗斯最大的银行俄罗斯联邦储蓄银行（Sberbank）周三也报告称，其位于萨拉托夫州巴拉科沃的数据中心遭到攻击。与此同时，克里姆林宫已将保护其关键基础设施免受乌克兰无人机袭击的责任推给了私营企业。

莫斯科一名33岁的出租车司机告诉CNN，他和同行们在使用Yandex Pro应用程序接单和管理订单时遇到了问题。此前，Yandex位于弗拉基米尔地区的数据中心于10月11日遭受了第三次攻击。出于对生计的担忧，这位司机要求匿名。

“起初，这款应用开始出现故障：几个小时都收不到订单，即使收到了，也经常出错。例如，Yandex 可能会派出四辆不同的车和司机去完成同一个订单。即使司机到达接客点并打电话给乘客后，也会发现乘客已经乘坐另一辆出租车离开了，”他回忆道。

阿纳斯塔西娅·巴拉什科娃/路透社

他说，最严重的问题是司机无法提取已赚的工资，导致他们难以支付租车和燃油费用。最终，他不得不将租车归还给出租车公司，因为他既无法承担继续开车却赚不到钱，还要支付车贷的负担。

“对很多司机来说，这不仅仅是一个技术故障，而是关乎他们能否继续工作、养活自己的问题，”他告诉 CNN。

莫斯科居民塔蒂亚娜（她要求 CNN 使用化名）表示，周二早上醒来后，她发现自己 Yandex Pay 账户（俄罗斯版的 Apple Savings，在 2022 年乌克兰全面入侵后停止使用）上的 150 万卢布（约合 17830 美元）存款不见了。她原本打算用这笔钱买辆车。

“我当时慌了神，哭得泣不成声。我甚至做好了再也拿不回那笔钱的心理准备。”塔蒂亚娜说，她仍然抱有最好的希望。

Yandex 在一份声明中表示，客户的资金是安全的，在三个数据中心遭到攻击后，该公司正在努力恢复应用程序的服务。

乌克兰国防公司 Fire Point 在 X 上嘲讽了 Yandex，以回应这家科技巨头金融科技部门负责人 Dima Pirogov 的声明。

“迪玛，你试过把它关掉再重新开机吗？”火点回答道。

乌克兰正面临来自其主要盟友美国的压力，要求其停止对俄罗斯能源基础设施的袭击，并确保俄罗斯柴油持续供应全球市场。基辅方面传递的信息很明确：它仍然有办法让克里姆林宫的日子不好过。