Russian Firms Seek Foreign Storage After Drone Strikes
Growing demand for international data centre space in Kazakhstan and other regions follows recent attacks on key infrastructure within Russia.
By Hiroshi Ferrari ·
Russian enterprises are increasingly reserving space in foreign data processing centres to mitigate risks to their digital infrastructure. This shift in strategy has emerged following a series of drone strikes that targeted major data facilities within Russia during October.
The surge in interest for external storage capacity was highlighted by Yevgeny Svidersky, Vice President for Cloud Services at ITGlobal.com. Speaking to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, he noted that businesses are showing strong interest in sites located in Kazakhstan and other neighboring areas. Multiple industry sources have confirmed that several Russian companies have already initiated the process of migrating their data to these external locations.
Corporate leaders explain that recent events have transformed data centre failures from a theoretical possibility into a tangible threat. Consequently, companies are reevaluating their business continuity plans. A primary focus is identifying backup sites that operate on independent network and energy infrastructure, distinct from their primary domestic data centres.
The impetus for this move comes from Ukrainian military operations that targeted data centres operated by Yandex and other Russian tech giants in October. The attacks affected key facilities across six oblasts in European Russia, including Vladimir, Kaluga, Leningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan, and Saratov.
Yandex has since reported that its engineers have restored access to 97.16% of customer data on the Yandex Cloud platform following the incidents. The company stated that the remaining 2.84% of data is unrecoverable due to severe equipment damage and the absence of customer backups for the affected files on the platform.
In response to these losses, Yandex has changed its default settings for new virtual machines. Backups, which previously required manual activation by customers, are now enabled by default. The company also indicated on its website that it is distributing its computing resources across new sites in several Russian regions to enhance resilience.
Specific incidents in October included a drone attack on the Sasta plant in Sasovo, Ryazan Oblast, which housed a Yandex data centre. The strike caused a fire, and Yandex reported that the facility suspended operations entirely after the morning attack. On October 9, another attack struck a data centre in Kaluga, leading to similar disruptions.
Further operations occurred on October 11, when Yandex announced the suspension of operations at a data centre in Vladimir following a drone strike. These repeated incidents have underscored the vulnerability of concentrated data infrastructure to aerial threats.
In a related regulatory move, Russian leader Vladimir Putin signed a decree requiring non-state owners of data centres to reserve 10% of their capacities. This measure aims to ensure the uninterrupted operation of Russia's broader IT infrastructure by maintaining a buffer of available storage and processing power.
The migration to foreign data centres marks a significant adaptation for Russian businesses, which are now prioritizing geographic diversification to safeguard critical digital assets against future physical attacks on domestic infrastructure.
