Did Ukrainian strikes on Yandex data centres cause Russian bot activity to plummet?
Story by Sasha Vakulina
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Ukrainian strikes on Russian technology giant Yandex’s data centres have been followed by a dramatic decline in automated online activity, raising questions about whether the attacks may also have disrupted Moscow’s influence operations abroad.
The sudden drop fuelled speculation in Europe and the United States about just how much of the political debate on social media might have been driven by Russian bots.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy weighed in on Monday, saying social media platforms had become noticeably less hostile.
The Yandex outage probably didn’t blitz Russian bots
At least, not the troll traffic that blights social media.
by Jess Weatherbed
Oct 12, 2026, 4:43 PM GMT+1
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Jess Weatherbed
Multiple Ukrainian drone strikes over the last week have taken Russian data centers offline and reportedly caused online bot traffic to plummet — but in reality it’s probably not the kind of bot activity most people associate with Russia.
Over the past week, Ukrainian drones struck three data centers belonging to Yandex, the tech giant often called “Russia’s Google.” The first strike happened on Oct. 8, followed by a second attack on Oct. 9. On Sunday, Oct. 11, a third strike damaged a Yandex data center in the Vladimir region, east of Moscow. The company said operations at that facility were completely suspended and some of its services were unavailable, according to the BBC.
The attacks disrupted Yandex services, from its AI chatbot to its smart home devices. Per the BBC, the military strikes were meant to target “places that provide revenue streams for Moscow’s war machine.”
Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday, Zelenskyy said “everyone noticed” a drop in Russian bot activity on social media after the strikes. On X, Reddit, and elsewhere, users in several Western countries reported seeing less right-wing activity in their feeds, from pro-GOP accounts in the U.S. to supporters of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Czech member of the European Parliament Tomáš Zdechovský also pointed to claims that online support for the AfD had dropped after the strikes.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
