Ukraine Just Put Russia Into a DARK AGE With ONE MOVE

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Become a Member Today and Unlock EXCLUSIVE Videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKfak8fBm_Lhy4eX9UKxEpA/join  Between October 8 and 11, 2026, Ukrainian long-range strike drones targeted the physical heart of the Russian internet, hitting three of Yandex’s five massive data centers in Sasovo, Kaluga, and Vladimir. Knocking out major cloud availability zones, disabling supercomputers used to train YandexGPT, and taking down over 80 digital platforms, this campaign brings the war directly to Russia’s tech sector. Discover how Ukraine’s retaliatory data center strikes are paralyzing Russian digital services, damaging CNC missile-component tooling, and exposing critical domestic air defense shortages.  ⏱️ CHAPTERS: 00:00 - The Opening Salvo: Sasovo Yandex Data Center Strike (October 8) 03:42 - Collateral Defense Impact: Sasta CNC Machine Tool Plant 05:25 - Expanding the Campaign: The Kaluga Mega-Data Center Struck (October 9) 07:00 - Three in Four Days: Vladimir Hub Hit & Digital Architecture Knockout (October 11) 10:10 - The "Mirror Strategy": Retaliation for Russian Strikes on Ukrainian Servers 12:59 - Digital Resilience Asymmetry: Western Cloud Migration vs. Russian Sovereign Stack 14:58 - Air Defense Deficits: Self-Defense Mandates & Corporate Asset Seizure Threats 17:41 - Compound Systemic Breakdown: Warehouses, Fuel Networks, & Digital Contagion  Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join  #militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis #themilitaryshow  SOURCES: https://pastes.io/eBjZzd3f

Transcript

00:01Frankly, we're surprised that it's taken this long.

00:04One of the most obvious targets for Ukraine to strike has just been hit.

00:09Scratch that, several of these very obvious targets are burning

00:12after being paid visits by Ukrainian drones.

00:15With this one move, Ukraine is plunging Russia into a dark age.

00:20No more convenience. Bye-bye Internet.

00:23Every modern convenience enjoyed by Russians is on the verge of disappearing,

00:27as Putin's promise that the so-called special military operation

00:31would change nothing for the average Russian is broken once more.

00:35Ukraine finally went and did it.

00:37The data centers are being hit.

00:40This is what we know so far.

00:42It all started on October 8th.

00:44That's when Ukraine's drones flew deep into Sosovo in the Ryazana blast of Russia.

00:50Those drones had traveled around 580 kilometers to reach their target,

00:53which was a Russian industrial site nestled deep in the region.

00:57The site just so happened to be home to a data center operated by Yandex,

01:02which is Russia's largest search engine provider

01:04and the closest thing that Russia has to a homegrown version of Google.

01:08The drones hit their target.

01:10We'll reveal the damage they did in a moment.

01:12But first, are you enjoying our reporting?

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01:22By 1.31 a.m. Moscow time, Yandex's cloud portal was reporting that power outages were occurring

01:28in the Roo Central 1B availability zone.

01:32In the hours that followed, report after report was sent to DownDetector,

01:35complaining about lost Yandex services, including search and email.

01:40Another service, named Detector 404, reported that it had received 58,268 user complaints

01:47in the days following the strikes.

01:50Yandex also took a financial hit.

01:52The company's proxy stock on the Moscow Stock Exchange was down 3% in the wake of the strike.

01:57This is the one thing Russia feared the most.

02:00Ukraine is targeting the data centers, and in doing so, it's plunging Russians into the Dark Ages.

02:05There would be much worse to come.

02:07The aftermath of the strike saw Yandex put out a press release confirming the attack,

02:13while claiming that its core services have survived, but others might experience outages.

02:18But as Yandex and Russia scrambled to make excuses,

02:23independent media outlets were already showcasing the scale of the damage.

02:27One of those outlets is Astra, which is a media outlet that should be very well known

02:32to regular viewers of our channel.

02:34On October 8th, Astra published a report stating,

02:37Astra OSINT analyst has determined from eyewitness footage

02:40that the fire originated at the SASTA machine tool plant,

02:44which, according to Wikimapia, also houses the Yandex DC data center.

02:50A two-for-one strike, then.

02:52Ukraine always seems to know how to get the most out of its drones.

02:56Astra also posted geolocated images of the strike zone,

03:00along with a short video showcasing the scale of the blaze.

03:03Great. It's massive.

03:04The sort of fire that can rip through an entire data center before emergency services

03:09are able to put it out.

03:10We see an entire roof engulfed in flames and smoke,

03:14offering a hint to the photographs that would come later.

03:17Those photos would arrive courtesy of satellites on October 9th.

03:21United 24 Media shared them, along with revealing that Yandex was forced into a complete shutdown

03:27of its operations at Sosovo due to Ukraine's attack.

03:30We see a blackened roof and clear fire damage to the facility's infrastructure.

03:35What we see here is Ukraine taking out a major component of the Yandex cloud infrastructure.

03:41A facility with an electrical capacity of 12 megawatts that accommodates tens of thousands of servers

03:47has just gone up in smoke.

03:49But if Russia thought that the nightmare was over after just one night,

03:52it was sorely mistaken.

03:54More strikes were coming.

03:56Before we get to them, it's worth revisiting that brief mention we made of a Russian tooling plant

04:01on the same site as the devastated data center.

04:04That plant is named Sasta, and according to Excelenova Plus,

04:08it was also hit during Ukraine's deadly October 8th strike.

04:11That plant is responsible for the production of CNC metalwork machining tools,

04:16including turnmill systems, 5-axis machining centers, and more.

04:20Why does that matter?

04:22Well, those types of tools are key to producing the high-precision metal parts and assemblies

04:27used in a lot of Russia's weapons.

04:29Those weapons include missiles, such as the Iskander missiles that Russia has been using

04:34to devastate Ukrainian cities, says Militanyi.

04:38Ukraine's drones were busy on October 8th,

04:40though you wouldn't know that if you listened to Ryazan Oblast governor Pavel Malkov.

04:45Tonight, two UAVs were shot down over the territory of the Ryazan region, the governor said,

04:51while making a brief mention of the roof of an enterprise-catching fire.

04:56As usual, Russia is trying to obscure information because it doesn't want to admit

05:00that Ukraine just hit something very valuable.

05:03But Russia can't hide the damage for long,

05:06especially not when major cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg felt the impact.

05:11According to the Kyiv Independent, many of the reports about Yandex services being down

05:16stemmed from those two cities and started flowing at about 4pm local time.

05:22The outages spread almost as fast as the fires.

05:24By the evening, it wasn't just Yandex that was affected.

05:27Rootube, the Russian Railway's website, and several online retail sites were also taken offline,

05:33all because of what happened at Sosovo.

05:35By the night of October 8th, Yandex was desperately trying to recover.

05:39A few hours later, a second data centre was hit.

05:42On October 9th, Ukraine's drones flew into the Kaluga region of Russia.

05:47Their target was the region's data centre.

05:50Also operated by Yandex, that data centre is one of Russia's largest, reports the BBC.

05:56It spans 130,000 square metres and sucks up enough electricity to supply 220,000 UK homes annually.

06:04That is not the sort of site that Yandex wants to see being hit by Ukrainian drones.

06:09But that's exactly what happened on October 9th, as those drones took out several modules of the data centre,

06:15knocking them out of operation.

06:16We don't fully know what that means in context yet,

06:19though we do know that this site is large enough to accommodate 3,800 server racks.

06:24Many of those racks will have just gone offline.

06:27Yet more damage was done to Yandex and its many services throughout Russia.

06:32This second attack confirmed what the Kremlin and the suits in the Yandex boardroom would have feared

06:36after Sosova went down.

06:38We're seeing a Wild Berries replay here.

06:41As with Wild Berries, Ukraine isn't satisfied with one site.

06:45It's going after everything that underpins Russia's digital infrastructure,

06:49and it's hitting hard, fast and repeatedly.

06:52And if you needed any evidence of that, an interesting piece of news broke right as we were about to

06:57send this video into production.

06:58A third Yandex site has been hit.

07:01This is exactly the kind of thing that we cover at the military show.

07:04If you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, now is the perfect time.

07:08And if you want to know when our videos go live, ring the notification bell so you're always among the

07:13first to see our content.

07:15Oh, Vladimir, this war isn't treating you well, is it?

07:18We're not talking about Putin here either.

07:20Ukraine's third Yandex strike targeted the Russian region of Vladimir,

07:24with news of the attack breaking on October 11th.

07:27UKR Media was among the first to report on what happened,

07:30as it claimed that Ukraine's strike had devastated a data center in Vladimir,

07:35bringing the entire enterprise to a screeching halt.

07:38This attack also marked the third against Russian data centers in four days.

07:43It appears the attack began on October 10th and carried on through into the early hours of October 11th.

07:49And as we saw in Kaluga, Yandex was forced to post a message on its Yandex Cloud webpage,

07:54noting a power cut to the Rue Central 1A service area.

07:58This is the service area that the server infrastructure built in Vladimir supplies.

08:02And again, just like Kaluga, we saw a similar response from Russian authorities.

08:07The Vladimir regional governor, Alexander Avdaev,

08:09would only confirm that a fire had broken out at an infrastructure facility.

08:14Vague nonsense like this can't hide the fact that Russia's data centers are burning.

08:18The Russian people see it, and more importantly, they feel it.

08:23Every website that goes down, every email that fails to send,

08:27and every online order that can't be placed is a result of Ukraine's devastating data center strikes.

08:33Ukraine is striking hard at the heart of Russia's convenience to deliver a clear message

08:37to Putin's people that their leader has made their lives harder than ever before.

08:42Back to the dark ages you go.

08:44The Kyiv Post adds that Ukraine's October 11th strike targeted a facility that houses 2,880 server racks,

08:52and it was strong enough to shut down over 80 digital platforms that rely on Yandex architecture to operate.

08:58Those services include plenty of Yandex rip-offs of Western tech,

09:02including Yandex Music, Yandex's Alice voice assistant, and the Telemost video conferencing tool.

09:08We're seeing what we have seen so often from Ukraine with its long-range strikes.

09:12This is the systematic targeting of a key part of Russia's domestic infrastructure,

09:17designed to limit access to the internet for everyday people and military sites alike.

09:22It's such a simple approach to take, yet Ukraine does an immense amount of damage with it.

09:27And Yandex is going to be very worried about what comes next.

09:31As Reuters points out, Yandex operates five data centers throughout Russia.

09:36Three of those data centers have already been hit,

09:38including the Sosovo hub that also happens to host two of the three supercomputers

09:43that Yandex purchased to train its Yandex GPT AI model.

09:48Yandex hasn't revealed whether those supercomputers are still operational.

09:52But right now, the company has bigger fish to fry.

09:55Three data centers are down, two more remain,

09:58and if the four days of Ukrainian strikes show us anything,

10:01it's that Yandex doesn't have the air defense infrastructure in place to stop Ukraine's drones.

10:06The obvious question is when the other two data centers will go down.

10:10We'd be willing to bet that it won't be long until all five are turning to flaming wrecks.

10:15That brings us nicely into what Ukraine's latest strategy shows us

10:19and what it means for the future of the war.

10:21And we're going to start by pointing out something important.

10:24These data center attacks are a response to what Russia has been doing over the last couple of months.

10:30We mentioned that data centers are a seemingly obvious target,

10:33to the point where it's taken almost five years for them to be visited by Ukraine's drones.

10:38We can only assume that Ukraine was holding fire, waiting for the right moment to strike.

10:44That right moment came when Russia started attacking Ukraine's data centers.

10:49Starting in September, Russia started striking Ukraine's data centers,

10:52with some being subjected to repeated attacks.

10:55On October 1st, Russia hit a data center located on Predslovinska Street in Kyiv,

11:00which followed on from several other strikes the months prior.

11:04The attack shut the data center down, and it came on the back of a pair of attacks

11:07against the Kozmanova data center, also in Kyiv.

11:11A few days later, on October 6th, the news broke that Russia had also hit

11:15the D-Line.ua data center in Kyiv, taking it offline completely.

11:19In late September alone, at least six Ukrainian data centers were targeted,

11:24and the Kremlin made it clear why it was adopting this strategy.

11:27These data centers process intelligence for Ukraine's military, Russia declared,

11:32which makes them legitimate targets.

11:34That was the catalyst.

11:35If Russia is going to declare data centers as legitimate military targets,

11:38that's all Ukraine needs to hear to finally start attacking Yandex.

11:42After all, Russia can't claim these were terrorist attacks.

11:46The Kremlin has just declared that data centers can be hit because of whatever

11:49military functions Russia claims they serve.

11:52No less than Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelensky,

11:55has confirmed that what we've seen from Ukraine since October 8th is a mirror strategy.

12:00Revenge is on Ukraine's mind, as Zelensky declares,

12:03We always respond in kind.

12:05You all know that they have been and are striking our data centers.

12:08So we responded to them.

12:10It seems that Russia believed that it would be able to start data center strikes

12:13without suffering from any Ukrainian retaliation.

12:16Putin's plan, as it always seems to be,

12:19is to make life untenable for the civilians in Ukraine's cities,

12:22and especially in the capital of Kyiv.

12:25But the Kremlin has miscalculated.

12:27First, Putin seems to believe that Russia is fighting the same war in 2026

12:31as it was in 2022.

12:33In other words, a war where Ukraine can't immediately respond

12:36to what Russia is doing with long-range attacks of its own.

12:39October 8th and onward serve as a timely reminder to Putin

12:42that Russia can't have it all its own way in the long-range game.

12:45But there's something more important that the Kremlin seems to have overlooked.

12:49Striking Ukraine's data centers causes damage, of that there is no doubt.

12:53However, Russia has miscalculated the extent of that damage.

12:57Ukraine has a lot of friends in European places,

13:00and those friends can help Ukraine to survive Russia's assaults on its data centers.

13:05As the Atlantic Council reported in May,

13:09Ukraine started a process of migrating its most critical data services

13:12from domestic servers into Western cloud infrastructure.

13:16By the middle of 2022, over 10 petabytes of data from universities,

13:21Ukrainian ministries, and more had been migrated.

13:24Ukraine anticipated all of this happening,

13:27years before Russia started to attack its data centers.

13:29Now, this doesn't mean that Ukraine is out of the woods.

13:32Domestic data centers are still very important,

13:34especially when it comes to speed on the battlefield.

13:37But the key here is that Ukraine has essentially backed up its key functions

13:41outside of its own territory.

13:44Can we say the same for Russia?

13:45We know that Russia has been using the cloud platforms

13:49offered by the likes of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft

13:51to help coordinate its missile strikes.

13:54Ukraine itself revealed this following a May cyber investigation.

13:57However, these are Western companies that could be compelled

14:00to stop providing what Russia needs for its attacks through sanctions.

14:03If that were to happen,

14:05Russia would have to rely primarily on its domestic infrastructure,

14:09much of which is now burning.

14:11The Atlantic Council points out that Russia has been attempting

14:14to build digital resilience through a combination

14:17of sovereign control and redundancy.

14:19But the former of these strategies exposes a weakness.

14:22If Russia wants to own its data infrastructure,

14:25that means it needs to keep as much of its digital architecture

14:28as possible in-house.

14:30That makes said architecture a static target for Ukraine to hit,

14:33and it's unclear how Russia can recover.

14:35This is the Kremlin's miscalculation.

14:38Ukraine can survive these data center attacks

14:41with the help of its allies,

14:42but it isn't clear just how much Russia

14:44can rely on overseas providers to help it

14:47when its sovereign infrastructure comes under attack.

14:49Given this situation, you would think that the Kremlin

14:53would respond to Ukraine's attacks

14:55by doing everything that it can

14:57to keep the Yandex data centers safe.

14:59After all, there are just two more

15:02waiting for visits from Ukraine's drones.

15:04However, Russia has gone in the opposite direction,

15:07as one of its lawmakers has called on data center owners

15:10to set up their own air defenses

15:12to prevent a repeat of what we've seen

15:14between October 8th and 11th.

15:16That call comes from the first deputy chairman

15:18of the State Duma Defense Committee,

15:20Alexei Zoravlev,

15:21who criticized the data centers he'd seen

15:24for the lack of defenses.

15:26There are no anti-drone nets in sight,

15:28no surveillance teams.

15:30There are absolutely no protective measures at all,

15:34Zoravlev declared in the wake of the Sosovo attack.

15:37Ukraine will be happy to hear that.

15:39Perhaps this wasn't the smartest thing

15:41for you to reveal, Mr. Zoravlev.

15:43What we've just seen here is one of Russia's

15:45key defense figures admitting

15:47that the Kremlin can't provide air defenses

15:49needed to protect some of Russia's most critical assets.

15:52This is becoming something of a running theme in Russia.

15:55Back in May, the Moscow Times reported

15:57that Russia had approved allowing private firms

16:00to purchase heavy weapons

16:01to defend their assets against Ukraine's drones.

16:04Fast forward to September,

16:05and the Wall Street Journal revealed

16:07that the Kremlin has created an official decree

16:10stating that any company that doesn't take responsibility

16:13for its own air defense could be subjected

16:16to temporary state seizure.

16:18The Kremlin may be looking at Ukraine's attacks

16:20as an opportunity to seize lucrative companies

16:23for its own purposes.

16:25Compelling those companies to handle their own air defense

16:27isn't the strong move that Putin believes it to be.

16:29It's an admission that Russia's air defenses

16:31are so stretched that they need, not want, but need,

16:35private enterprises to spend their money

16:37on defending themselves.

16:39Yandex clearly hasn't been doing that.

16:41Its remaining data centers have just become prime targets,

16:45both for Ukraine and a greedy Kremlin

16:47that may believe it can do a better job

16:49of running those data centers if they're state-controlled.

16:52Ukraine would probably be happy

16:54to see the Kremlin seize Yandex assets

16:56because it knows that the Russian state

16:59won't be able to do what Yandex is doing

17:01anywhere near as effectively as it needs to be done.

17:03This is a company that has managed to set itself up

17:06as Russia's digital foundation.

17:08Intelli News says that Yandex has captured

17:10about 70% of Russia's search market,

17:12making it the first port of call for millions of people

17:15when they're shopping online or searching for information.

17:18Yandex is investing in developing AI models,

17:21including sovereign models that use no foreign components.

17:24But the reason for all this success

17:26is that Yandex is a private enterprise.

17:28If the Kremlin gets its mucky paws on the company,

17:31state-controlled corruption and bureaucracy will follow.

17:34Ukraine may cripple the data centers.

17:36Putin's lackeys would ruin Yandex

17:39as a functioning part of the Russian digital ecosystem.

17:42For the Russian people,

17:43the attacks on Yandex data centers

17:45are just another brutal reminder

17:47that Putin has broken his promise to them.

17:50The convenience of modern life that Russians enjoy

17:53is being whittled away by Ukraine,

17:55bit by broken bit.

17:56As more data centers go down,

17:58internet outages and the loss of business-critical services

18:01will become the norm inside Russia.

18:03Those losses are compounded by fuel shortages

18:06caused by Ukraine's attacks on Russian refineries,

18:09as well as the Wildberry strikes we mentioned earlier,

18:12which are crippling Russia's digital economy.

18:14Right now, 80% of Wildberry's largest warehouses

18:17have been burned to the ground.

18:19Three-fifths of the country's most important

18:21digital providers' data centers are on fire,

18:24and there will be more to come.

18:26The Kiev Independent reports that Ukraine claims

18:28that 51% of Russia's oil refining is out of commission.

18:31Putin has gone from promising his people

18:34that Russia will never be touched by Ukraine

18:36to practically begging them to fend for themselves

18:39as the repercussions of his invasion ripple throughout Russia.

18:43We're only seeing the start.

18:45More Russian data centers are going to burn

18:47as Ukraine plunges Russia deeper into a dark age

18:50that is entirely Putin's fault.

18:52And while the data centers are burning,

18:54a deadly plague may be on the verge

18:56of spreading throughout Russia.

18:57A mysterious death has been reported

19:00at a Russian anti-plague facility,

19:02and questions are being asked about what has just been released

19:04and what it means for the future.

19:06We tell you everything you need to know about the plague

19:09that could cripple Russia in our video.

19:11But before you watch,

19:12this channel is built by real people

19:13who care about getting the story right.

19:15Subscribe, join the conversation below,

19:17and consider becoming a member

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19:24And thank you, as always, for watching.

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