Ukraine strikes cripple Yandex traffic to Estonian websites

Ukrainian attacks on Yandex data centres have almost completely halted traffic from the company’s network to Estonian websites, ERR reported, citing Estonia’s Information System Authority (RIA).

RIA analyst Simon Berner said that, as of October 12, the average number of requests to Estonian websites from Yandex’s network had fallen by 99.8% compared with the September average, or roughly 420-fold. The decline began suddenly early on Sunday.

RIA said it was too early to assess whether the attacks had changed the level of Russian cyberattacks. Berner said there was no reason to expect the disruption at Yandex’s data centres to significantly affect cyberattacks against Estonia, as attackers use infrastructure that does not depend on Yandex services.

The agency said it does not monitor Russian influence operations, including activity by social media bots and troll accounts, and therefore could not confirm or deny claims that those activities had declined.

Ukraine attacked three Yandex data centres last week. A facility near Moscow was damaged in a drone attack on Sunday, forcing the company to halt its operations there. Yandex data centres were also attacked in Sasovo on Thursday and Kaluga on Friday.

The technology company, which also runs food delivery and taxi apps used by tens of millions of people, has said its data centres are essential to the normal operation of its services. Foreign media have reported that the attacks also dealt a blow to Kremlin influence operations online.