Russia opens new front against Ukraine's digital infrastructure, hitting datacentres and ISPs
Russia struck multiple datacentres and internet providers in Kyiv this week, leaving around 100,000 households without internet and killing four people in a drone strike on telecom firm Datagroup's offices on Friday.
Russia has opened a new front in its war against Ukraine by striking several datacentres and internet providers in Kyiv this week. Ukraine's digital transformation ministry says roughly 100,000 households in and around Kyiv temporarily lost internet access following strikes on Wednesday and Thursday.
On Friday, a drone strike in central Kyiv hit the offices of Datagroup, one of Ukraine's largest telecom companies, killing four people. Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, wrote on X that Russia had deliberately targeted major Ukrainian datacentres in an effort to disrupt the flow of information.
Attack also reported in Poland
On Thursday, Polish authorities said a Starlink satellite station in central Poland that served Ukraine had been set on fire, which local officials described as an act of sabotage linked to Moscow. While Russia has targeted Ukrainian datacentres before, attacks of this scale are new.
Throughout the war, the Ukrainian government has prioritised keeping the country connected, working to ensure mobile and internet providers have backup power during prolonged outages. Ukraine's relatively decentralised internet network also makes it harder for individual strikes to cause widespread or lasting disruption.
But with winter approaching, industry figures worry that repeated attacks could begin to disrupt the networks underpinning Ukraine's banks, payment systems and public services. Blogger and former government adviser Serhii Sternenko urged Kyiv residents to prepare for winter by obtaining Starlink terminals or other backup communication methods, warning that Russia's goal extends beyond the capital's energy grid to destroying datacentres and internet operators altogether.
The strikes on digital infrastructure come amid an intensified Russian campaign against Ukraine's broader economy, with missiles and new jet-powered drones hitting warehouses, petrol stations, ports and other commercial sites. On Friday, a warehouse used by the McDonald's chain near Kyiv was also struck. Heavy industry has suffered too — this month Ukraine failed to produce a single tonne of steel for the first time in a century.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is struggling to counter a growing wave of new high-speed Russian jet-powered drones, including the Geran-5, while running critically low on Patriot missiles. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that US President Donald Trump had approved licences allowing Ukraine to produce Patriot air defence missiles domestically, though experts caution it could take years to establish such production.
