Ukraine’s drones knock out AI data center belonging to "Russia’s Google"

Other impacted Russian services included a dating app, a real estate aggregator, a self-publishing book platform and the website of the most successful professional soccer club in the Russian Premier League, according to Reuters.

Targeting data centers is just the latest example of them becoming wartime targets in 2026. After the United States and Israel attacked Iran in February, Iranian drones knocked out multiple Amazon data centers in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

But Russia has been regularly launching mass missile and drone attacks against Ukraine’s cities, targeting power grid infrastructure, transportation hubs and even residential apartment buildings since Russian President Vladimir Putin first launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine has recently been grappling with a shortage of interceptor weapons capable of shooting down Russian missiles and jet-powered drones. But the Ukrainian military has also gradually ramped up its own medium-range and long-range drone strike campaign in response to Russian attacks.

Ukraine’s drone strikes have focused on Russian military bases and supply lines, Russian-linked shipping in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea, and Russian energy infrastructure such as oil refineries. In the summer of 2026, Ukraine also targeted multiple warehouses belonging to the Russian companies Wildberries and Ozon, which are Russia’s Amazon equivalents.

In a sign of the potentially widening war, coordinated aerial and sea drone strikes sank two commercial ships in the Black Sea within the exclusive economic zones of NATO member countries Romania and Bulgaria on October 5 and October 6. Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy attributed those attacks to Russia.