After "Yandex" — "Sberbank": Ukraine attacked one of Russia’s largest data centers

During the night of October 14, Ukraine’s Defense Forces struck the Russian Sberbank’s megadata center in the city of Balakovo, Saratov region, Russia, with drones. The attack was confirmed by the Ukrainian defense company Fire Point, reports UNN.

Well, you didn’t think it would be limited to just Yandex, did you? Sberbank, take up the baton!

Video: Telegram / supernova_plus

A massive drone attack on Balakovo continued during the night of October 14. Local residents reported dozens of explosions, after which fires broke out in the city’s industrial districts.

According to OSINT analysts from the Exilenova+ Telegram channel, one of the facilities attacked was Sberbank’s megadata center—a large-scale complex designed to store and process information and ensure the operation of banking IT systems and digital services.

The project is estimated to cost 122.2 billion rubles. The complex is designed for approximately 3,000 server racks and up to 120,000 servers, while its electrical capacity may reach 82 MW. Once construction is completed, it is expected to become one of the largest data centers in Russia.

Photo: Telegram / Exilenova+

Construction of the data center is still ongoing, although some parts of the complex may already have been commissioned. In addition to servicing banking infrastructure, its capacity was intended to host services of the Russian state digital platform GosTech.

Fire Point also reported that the MZ Balakovo steel mill was hit during the Defense Forces’ nighttime attack. The MZ Balakovo steel mill specializes in the production of steel and rolled metal products, including rebar and long products. The enterprise has its own steelmaking facilities, and its production capacity exceeds one million tons of products per year.

Photo: Telegram / firepointofficial

The attack was also confirmed by Roman Busargin, the governor of the Saratov region. According to him, several residential buildings were damaged and a woman was killed. At the same time, the Russian official stated that all of the city’s infrastructure facilities were allegedly operating normally. He did not comment on the reported damage to Sberbank’s megadata center.

Previously

Earlier, Ukraine’s Defense Forces carried out a series of strikes on Russian Yandex data centers in the Ryazan and Kaluga regions, as well as in Vladimir. According to Fire Point, after the attack on the last of the three facilities, all three of the company’s supercomputers became unavailable.

The strikes caused disruptions in the operation of Russian internet services, while the operations of companies using the Yandex Cloud infrastructure were put at risk.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previously explained the strikes on Russian data centers as a reciprocal response to Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure.