Russia has claimed that its strikes have damaged two major data center facilities in Kyiv, Ukraine, highlighting the growing vulnerability of Ukraine’s digital infrastructure as the war increasingly affects telecommunications and information systems. Both strikes took place within days of each other and reportedly damaged a data center owned by a mobile services provider, and a commercial data center.
The strikes come as Russia has intensified attacks on infrastructure in and around Kyiv. On September 15, the BeMobile data center was affected by a Russian drone attack. UCloud, which provides services from the facility, confirmed that its Kyiv data center had been affected. The attack temporarily disrupted websites using UCloud services, including the website of Ukraine’s National Paralympic Committee. UCloud did not disclose the extent of the physical damage but affected services were expected to be restored within several hours as reported by DataCentral.
Then on September 17, missile and drone strikes reportedly damaged energy and telecommunications infrastructure, and also injured more than 20 people in the capital. Yet another Russian strike on September 19, targeted the De Novo data center, one of Ukraine’s largest commercial data centers. The De Novo facility is a significant part of Ukraine’s commercial digital infrastructure operating at Tier III standards that provides cloud and infrastructure services, including hosting for major Ukrainian financial institutions.
According to Baxtel, Russian authorities claimed the facility was involved in processing and transmitting data for the Ukrainian military while De Novo describes its Kyiv facility as a sovereign-cloud and artificial-intelligence provider supporting mission-critical IT systems and major Ukrainian businesses.
Russian authorities have repeatedly described BeMobile as a military-related target. In a statement issued via Tass, Russia’s official news agency, the country’s Defense Ministry said, “Russian forces carried out group strikes overnight using air-launched precision weapons and strike unmanned aerial vehicles. The strikes hit the Radionix radio electronics plant in Kyiv, which produces control systems for Flamingo, Neptune, FP-7 and FP-9 missiles, as well as the B-Mobile data center, which stores, processes and transmits data, including intelligence data, and supports the operation of network equipment for Ukrainian troops.”
Damage to data centers can have consequences beyond the facilities themselves. Servers, network equipment, power systems and cooling infrastructure support banking, government services, telecommunications and thousands of commercial websites. Even temporary disruptions can therefore affect organizations far beyond the immediate strike site.
Ukraine has increasingly relied on redundant systems and geographically distributed infrastructure to keep essential digital services operating during the war. The damage to B-Mobile and reported strike on De Novo demonstrate the continuing risks facing the country’s digital backbone as physical attacks extend to critical computing infrastructure.