Russian search engine Yandex struggles after Ukrainian strikes on data centres

Russian tech giant Yandex has said it was struggling to maintain services after two of its five data centres were struck by Ukrainian drones in the past two days.

Often dubbed "Russia's Google", the company runs the country's most popular search engine, as well as a food-ordering and taxi app used by tens of millions of people.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attacks were in response to weeks of Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centres.

Both sides have stepped up attacks on infrastructure in recent months as the war between the two drags on. Kyiv says its strikes are aimed at revenue streams for Moscow's war machine, and that the latest attacks could force Russia to divert resources to Yandex.

Yandex said that its data centre in Sasovo, in the Ryazan region, had been "seriously damaged as a result of a drone attack" overnight into Thursday, with its operations "completely suspended".

Another data centre in Kaluga, a region south-west of Moscow, had also been attacked on Friday morning, it said, with part of that site's infrastructure "taken out of service".

Yandex said on Friday that its data centres were "critical" for the normal operation of its services and that it was "very difficult to predict" when they would be back online.

It said teams were working "day and night" to keep services running, but "unfortunately it is not a simple task".