Yandex says nearly 3% of cloud data lost in drone strikes

Yandex said on Tuesday, November 10, that 2.84% of customer data in its Yandex Cloud service is permanently lost. The data was on equipment damaged when Ukrainian drones struck the company's data centers in October. Engineers restored the other 97.16%, the Russian technology company said. This is the first time Yandex has put a number on data that cannot be recovered after the attacks, which hit some of the most important digital infrastructure in Russia.reuters.com

"The remaining 2.84% cannot be recovered due to critical damage to equipment and the absence of backups on the platform by customers," the company said in its statement. Yandex said customers who had used its cloud backup tools lost no data at all. Meduza used figures from Yandex Cloud's 2025 results report to estimate that the lost data could amount to about 100,000 terabytes and tens of millions of files.meduza.io+1

Backups by default, more locations

Yandex said it will now turn on backups by default so that more data survives any future disruption. Until now, customers had to switch backups on themselves. Backups are now on by default for new virtual machines. "Engineers continue to distribute Yandex Cloud computing resources across new independent locations in different regions of the Russian Federation. The number of locations will continue to increase," the company said.pravda.com.ua+1

Scope of the October attacks

Ukrainian drones attacked Yandex data centers between October 8 and October 11. The strikes disrupted ride-hailing, car-sharing, food delivery, maps, email, banking and streaming services. Government agencies and private companies that run on Yandex infrastructure were also affected. Three of the company's six data centers were hit, in Sasovo in the Ryazan region, in Kaluga and in Vladimir. Yandex has said its supercomputers were not damaged and have been moved to other locations. After the strikes, the company also withdrew its annual revenue forecast. The Russian business daily Kommersant, citing expert estimates, reported that replacing the damaged equipment could take about six months.themoscowtimes.com+2

Businesses look abroad

The strikes have also changed how Russian businesses think about risk. Some companies have started reserving data center capacity outside Russia, including in Kazakhstan, and are looking for backup sites that do not share network or power infrastructure with their main facilities. According to that report, companies say data center accidents "have ceased to be a hypothetical risk" and that they are "reviewing their approach to business continuity organisation".pravda.com.ua