Ukrainian drones hit Russia’s largest data center on Wednesday.
asserted
drones → hit → Wednesday
This was Ukraine’s fourth strike on Russian data centers in the past week and confirmation of a new reality of war: data centers are valuable enemy assets and they will be targeted.
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they → target → war
In 2006, British economist Clive Humby declared “data is the new oil,” and big tech adopted the metaphor.
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tech → declare → metaphor
Twenty years later, a dark side of the truism has been revealed.
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side → reveal → truism
If the places where oil is refined are valuable targets in a war then so, too, are the places where data is refined.
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data → refine → war
We’ve seen this not just in the Russia-Ukraine war, but also with Iran hitting Amazon Web Services data centers in Dubai in retaliation for America’s strikes on the country.
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Iran → see → country
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed strikes on Russian data centers and oil refineries in a post on X and called them a “symmetrical response" to Russian aggression.
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Zelenskyy → confirm → aggression
Here we have oil and data together again, not as a metaphor in an economics lecture, but in the pronouncement of a world leader defending his country.
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we → have → country
Three of Ukraine’s strikes hit data centers that belonged to Yandex, Russia’s Google-equivalent, and damaged the company’s supercomputers that housed some of its AI models.
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that → hit → models
The latest attack hit a data center operated by Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank.
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attack → hit → Sberbank
It’s too early to tell what the effects of the strike on the Sberbank data center will be, but the three strikes on Yandex have disrupted internet and communications across Russia.
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strikes → ’ → Russia
An online rumor said that the strikes on Yandex had the effect of taking down Russian bot farms, but this wasn’t true.
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this → say → farms
Yandex is ubiquitous in Russia — it has its own app store, payment services, dating services, taxi and bus apps, and email services.
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it → have → store
The company operates six data centers in Russia and the strikes knocked two of them offline completely.
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strikes → operate → them
People in Russia have lost access to their email, some of their data is seemingly gone, and taxi and bus apps only work intermittently.
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apps → lose → data
ChrisO_wiki, an anonymous researcher who translates Russian social media posts for the western web, chronicled how the Yandex outages are hitting everyday Russians.
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outages → translate → Russians
“A taxi driver from Yekaterinburg says that after the service disruptions, he can no longer view his order history, and the status of trips is updated with a delay,” ChrisO_wiki said in a post on X and Bluesky.
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ChrisO_wiki → say → X
“The loss of Yandex's cloud services is also having severe impacts on Russian commercial logistics.
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loss → have → logistics
Those who work with electronic document management are unable to register incoming goods, severely affecting manufacturers and distributors,” they said in another post.
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they → work → post
Russia has been targeting Ukrainian data centers for months and Iran
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Russia → target → months
Klaudia Klonowska, a researcher who studies the effects of emerging technologies on international law, told 404 Media that attacks on data centers are so new that international law around them is still developing.
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law → study → them
“You have very limited situations in which they would actually qualify as lawful targets when they're used by the military, and even then, it's very difficult for the attackers to know whether that's happening or not,” Klonowska said.
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Klonowska → have → military
If the data centers are purely processing military data, then they could be legitimate targets, according to Klonowska.
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they → process → Klonowska
But many, if not most, data centers are dual-use, meaning they house both civilian and military data.
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they → mean → data
In many cases, disrupting daily life seems to be part of the point.
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disrupting → disrupt → point
When Russia struck data centers in Ukraine in September, state-backed news agencies claimed it hosted data for Palantir that supported Ukrainian intelligence efforts and was a lawful target.
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that → strike → efforts
Ukraine denied the allegation.
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Ukraine → deny → allegation
“So you see how difficult, because of the nature of these centers, it's really to pinpoint what is happening with them and who is using them and for what means,” Klonowska said.
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Klonowska → see → what
“Sometimes [Ukraine] mentions that these data centers contribute to Moscow's revenues that then fuel the war machine.
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that → mention → machine
But that's not enough to make them lawful targets.
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them → make → ?
Klonowska noted that it is civilians who suffer most, not the military, when data centers go offline.
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centers → note → military
“There are questions about proportionality given how widespread the attacks are,” she said.
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she → be → proportionality
“A lack of internet access for very prolonged periods affects everything.
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lack → affect → everything
It's all of the civilian services that are being disrupted, which you can imagine also includes things like hospitals, traffic, judicial services, etc. etc.”
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you → disrupt → hospitals
It’s worth noting that Russia has repeatedly attacked civilian targets in Ukraine, including apartment buildings, public transportation, and hospitals.
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Russia → ’ → buildings
According to Klonowska, international and humanitarian law needs to catch up with the issue and that scholars like herself are only just starting to understand the ramifications.
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scholars → accord → ramifications
“I think there's also another bigger question behind all of this,” she said.
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she → think → this
“Why have we gotten to the point where we have permitted militaries of various states to use civilian commercial data centers for their military purposes?
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we → get → purposes
By potentially using them and relying on them, they have opened them up to the possibility of becoming military targets.
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they → use → possibility
”
Disentangling civilian and military data probably won’t take data centers off the target list, but it will make international law more clear on which buildings are legitimate targets.
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buildings → disentangle → list
…and 15 more, not listed.
The Aporia
