A Russian lawmaker called on data center owners to set up their own air defense systems

Owners of Russian data centers must take it upon themselves to protect their facilities from drone attacks. This was stated by Alexei Zhuravlev, first deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma’s Defense Committee, while commenting on the attack on the Yandex data center in the Ryazan region. 

According to the deputy, Russian businesses already have the capability to develop their own air defense systems to protect their facilities. Zhuravlev also noted that companies are permitted to equip such facilities with defensive systems.

At the same time, he stated that data centers allegedly still lack sufficient protection against drones. “There are no anti-drone nets in sight, no surveillance teams—there are absolutely no protective measures at all,” Zhuravlev said.

The lawmaker argues that Russian businesses should have anticipated possible attacks on such facilities in advance, since the locations of data centers are not secret. At the same time, he acknowledged that their level of protection differs from that of military facilities.

Zhuravlev also called on the owners of large companies to invest their own funds in the security of critical infrastructure. Among the measures he proposed are the installation of anti-drone nets, the organization of surveillance patrols, and the creation of their own air defense systems.

The statement came after an incident at the Yandex data center in Sasovo, Ryazan Oblast. On October 8, a fire broke out at the facility, affecting part of the infrastructure. The company announced the suspension of operations at the site and possible disruptions to certain services. Russian media linked the fire to a drone attack.

This is according to Russian media reports.

In Russia’s Ryazan Region, a fire broke out at the Yandex data center following a drone attack.

Following this, a major outage was recorded in the Russian segment of the internet on October 8 at around 4:00 p.m. Problems arose with banks, online services, mobile operators, e-commerce sites, and other platforms.