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Russia’s Yandex Taxi Gets Knocked Offline and Turns to Google Maps for Help
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![Photo of Vlad Litnarovych]( "Photo of Vlad Litnarovych")
Yandex Taxi has begun advising drivers to use Google Maps or Waze after a series of strikes on the company’s Russian data centers was followed by widespread disruptions across its services, according to Russian outlet Verstka on October 12.
Two taxi drivers in Moscow and Yekaterinburg told the outlet that a notification recommending alternative navigation apps appeared inside Yandex Pro, the company’s platform for drivers.
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Yandex also advised them to download offline maps of their cities in case its own navigation service temporarily becomes unavailable.
The guidance comes after several days of widespread problems affecting Yandex Taxi. Drivers and passengers across multiple Russian regions have reported delays and errors in the service, while some drivers say the disruption is now directly affecting their work and earnings.
🤡 “Living the dream!” — Russians react to the massive Yandex outage
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) October 11, 2026
Can't book a taxi, apps aren't working, navigation systems are down, and some users are even having trouble paying for purchases.
But is that really a reason to be upset?
The time has come for all Russians to… https://t.co/IFmG3lZ9q7 pic.twitter.com/D89eLgGUzK
One Yekaterinburg driver told Verstka that he can no longer properly view his order history and that trip statuses are updating with significant delays. In some cases, a driver may already be completing a second ride while the system still shows them as heading to the first, despite the driver correctly marking arrival, pickup, and completion.
Taxi bonuses are also reportedly failing to appear, reducing drivers’ earnings. Another issue involves so-called “phantom orders,” in which drivers arrive at the requested address only to be told by passengers that they have already booked and taken another vehicle.
The problems are not limited to Yandex Taxi. Users have also reported disruptions affecting Yandex Pay, Telemost, Direct, Mail, Messenger, Disk, and other services. According to DownDetector data cited by Verstka, roughly 435,000 users reported problems over the past 24 hours.
The outages follow Ukrainian drone attacks against three of Yandex’s four major data centers in Russia—in Sasovo in the Ryazan region, Kaluga, and Vladimir.
Earlier, reports emerged that Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian data centers may have knocked all three of Yandex’s supercomputers offline, potentially taking out half of the six largest supercomputing systems operating in Russia.
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-639d0a97447a85a7c7fbc14489070252.png "Footage showing a Ukrainian FPV interceptor drone deploying a net to bring down a Russian Molniya-2 attack drone. (Source: Ptashka Drones)")
