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Ukraine Struck Yandex Data Centers, Russian Bots Went Silent—Now Questions Are Mounting
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![Photo of Roman Kohanets]( "Photo of Roman Kohanets")
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated on October 12 that Russian bot activity on social media had declined following Ukrainian drone strikes on Yandex data centers.
Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum in Poland, Zelenskyy highlighted Russia's extensive network of social media bots, which he described as a tool for destabilizing online discussions.
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Zelenskyy noted that "everyone noticed" a reduction in Russian bot activity after Ukrainian drones struck data centers operated by Yandex, Russia's largest internet technology company, according to BBC News Ukrainian.
The president's remarks followed reports of a sharp decline in automated internet traffic originating from Yandex's network, although the available data does not establish whether Russian propaganda operations were affected.
According to an October 12 analysis by The Deep Dive, Cloudflare Radar data showed that automated HTTP requests from Yandex’s AS13238 network fell sharply after October 8 and approached zero on October 11.
At 02:00 UTC on October 11, automated requests stood at just 0.3% of the chart's maximum, compared with 88.2% at the same hour a week earlier. Cloudflare classified 99.6% of HTTP requests to HTML content from the network during the seven-day period as automated.
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An HTTP request is a message sent by a browser, application, or automated program to a web server to retrieve information or perform an action. Automated requests can originate from search engine crawlers, monitoring systems, and other software, not necessarily social media bots.
Cloudflare Radar tracks this traffic using network identifiers called Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs). Yandex's AS13238 identifies part of the company's internet infrastructure, allowing researchers to measure requests originating from that network.
The reported decline from 88.2% to 0.3% represents a change in traffic relative to the chart's maximum, not a reduction in the number of social media accounts. Similarly, the 99.6% figure indicates the proportion of requests classified as automated, rather than the share associated with propaganda.
German technology publication t3n also documented the decline, reporting that bot traffic fell to approximately 0.4% of the previous week’s level before recovering to around 20% by the evening of October 11.
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These measurements show a sharp reduction in automated network activity, but cannot establish whether Russian propaganda bots disappeared or whether damaged infrastructure stopped generating ordinary automated traffic.
The disruptions followed three reported drone strikes on Yandex facilities in Russia. A data center in Sasovo, Ryazan region, was struck overnight on October 8, followed by an attack on a facility in Kaluga on October 9.
On October 11, another strike forced a Yandex data center in the Vladimir region to shut down, according to the company. The disruptions affected Yandex services and applications operated by businesses relying on its cloud infrastructure.
The decline in automated traffic also prompted speculation about possible links between Russian digital infrastructure and online political activity in Europe, particularly involving Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
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Czech Member of the European Parliament Tomáš Zdechovský drew attention to claims that online activity supporting AfD had declined after the strikes. The Ukrainian publication The Page highlighted his October 11 remarks questioning whether disruptions to Russian infrastructure had affected the party's online support.
Ukraine's campaign against Yandex infrastructure also exposed the vulnerability of Russia's wider internet segment.
On the afternoon of October 8, hours after a fire broke out at the Sasovo facility, banks, retailers, mobile operators, transportation services, and major news websites suffered outages, with the most serious disruptions in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The Sasovo site reportedly housed two of Yandex's three supercomputers. It shares an industrial site with the Sasta machine-tool plant, which was also struck overnight and is reportedly linked to supply chains supporting Russia's Iskander ballistic missile production.
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-e179e0599ae687118e91fd783379c19f.png "Footage showing a Ukrainian FP-1 drone strike on a Russian drone workshop and storage facility in the Donetsk region. (Source: 7th Air Assault Corps of the Armed Forces of Ukraine)")