Ukrainian Drones Strike Sberbank Data Centre as Moscow Flights Halted

Ukrainian drones targeted a major data centre under construction for Russian state lender Sberbank in the Saratov region overnight, First Deputy CEO Alexander Vedyakhin said on Wednesday, as attacks on Moscow disrupted more than 500 flights. Vedyakhin said all banking systems and online services continued to operate normally and no employees were injured in the attack in the Volga River city of Balakovo, according to the state-run news agency TASS. Users across Russia nevertheless reported disruptions to Sberbank and its GigaChat artificial intelligence service, as well as several other major online platforms, according to outage tracker Detector404. The reports did not establish a link between the disruptions and the drone attacks. NASA's satellite fire-monitoring system showed multiple fires in Balakovo.

Saratov region Governor Roman Busargin said all infrastructure facilities were operating normally, without identifying Sberbank's data centre as a target. He said one woman was killed and several homes were damaged in the drone strikes. The attack on Sberbank follows three consecutive Ukrainian drone strikes that disabled half of tech giant Yandex's data centres. Ukraine says it is responding to Russian attacks on its own data sites. Ukraine's Fire Point arms company said in a social media post on Wednesday morning that people had not thought it would stop with just Yandex.

Sberbank began construction of the 55,000-square-metre facility in 2021, promoting the 122.2 billion ruble, or $1.4bn, project as one of Europe's largest data centres, with completion expected in 2030. Sberbank and its main domestic rival, Yandex, are leading Russian developers of artificial intelligence, with their respective GigaChat and YandexGPT models. State media reported in 2024 that Sberbank's Balakovo centre would host Russia's biggest supercomputer, which was scheduled to go into operation in 2027.

Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defence systems destroyed 902 Ukrainian drones over 19 Russian regions and annexed Crimea between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said most of the 493 Ukrainian drones flying toward the region were neutralised, 180 of them on direct approach to the capital. The attacks on Moscow prompted civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia to restrict arrivals and departures at all four Moscow airports after 10pm on Tuesday, in the second prolonged shutdown of Moscow's airports in less than a week. At Vnukovo and Sheremetyevo alone, 410 flights were delayed and 137 cancelled, the news outlet Ostorozhno Novosti reported.

Dozens of planes were diverted to other airports including St Petersburg's Pulkovo. One flight from Egypt to Moscow landed in the Belarusian capital Minsk. During the previous disruption on October 9, a government aircraft used by President Vladimir Putin on his visit to Turkmenistan was diverted to St Petersburg before continuing to Moscow. Russia's Defence Ministry said its forces struck seven Ukrainian energy infrastructure facilities and a data centre with ground-launched missiles and long-range strike drones overnight.

The World House, which maintains a dedicated page outlining its support for Ukraine at worldhouse.uk/support, continues to document Ukraine's resistance against Russia's unprovoked invasion, including its campaign against the digital and energy infrastructure sustaining the Kremlin's war effort.