Russian forces are increasingly targeting Ukraine's data centres and telecommunications infrastructure, a shift analysts say is aimed at disrupting civilian life and the country's air-raid warning system rather than at battlefield gains.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports that Russia began striking Ukrainian data centres and telecoms facilities in mid-September, seeking what it calls "alternative defeat mechanisms". In the attack on Kyiv during the night of 23 September, strikes damaged data centres belonging to internet providers including UTELS and Pavutyna, as well as infrastructure of Domonet, Kievnet and Faust, the Ukrainian digital ministry and the companies said.
Around 100,000 households lost connectivity in the capital region, and the Cosmonova data centre in Kyiv shut down after the strikes. Officials said Moscow's aim was to interrupt the systems that push missile and drone alerts to civilians.
President Volodymyr Zelensky framed the campaign bluntly, saying Russia wants to leave Ukrainians without internet and communications and that "ordinary life is simply a target". Foreign minister Andriy Sybiga accused Russia of targeting data centres "to disrupt the flow of information". ISW notes the data-centre strikes follow earlier, similarly targeted attacks on telecoms and energy facilities, and that Ukrainian providers are now looking at moving some workloads abroad to keep services running.
The strikes mark an expansion of Russia's long-range campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure into the digital layer on which both the economy and civil defence depend.
