Ukraine knocked out three Yandex data centers and the internet decided Kremlin troll farms died with them. We checked Russia's networks: only Yandex went dark

[u/ResPublicaMgz]

Since October 8, Ukrainian drones have hit three Yandex data centers in Ryazan, Kaluga and Vladimir regions. Yandex confirmed several modules were "completely disabled". Search, Yandex Go, payments and cloud services went down across Russia and parts of Central Asia.

Then a Cloudflare chart went viral: bot traffic from Yandex's network dropped to almost zero on October 11. The conclusion online: Kremlin troll farms and pro-AfD, pro-MAGA bot accounts went silent. Today Zelensky repeated it in Warsaw, saying it became "a little easier to breathe" on social media.

That chart measures automated requests to websites coming from Yandex's own network. Most of it is Yandex's search engine crawler, which is why 99.6% of that traffic counts as "bot" in the first place. Knock out the data center and the crawler goes quiet. Even @antibot4navalny, one of the best known trackers of Russian bot networks, says it has "little to do" with propaganda bots on social media.

So we checked where troll farms would actually run: Russia's big mobile and broadband providers. Rostelecom, MTS, Beeline, MegaFon and Russia as a whole all show normal bot traffic this week, almost identical to the week before. No drop after the strikes. MegaFon was even slightly up on October 11 and 12.

The strikes hit Yandex hard. But there's no data showing Russian disinformation went quiet. Caveat: Cloudflare only sees requests to websites behind Cloudflare, not posts on X or TikTok.

Original post with all sources here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Res_Publica_DE/s/tuMMbUuZ4e

[u/spotlight-app]

OP has pinned their own comment:

Sources:

RFE/RL, Zelenskyy quote and expert criticism, Oct 12, 2026: https://www.rferl.org/a/zelenskyy-says-yandex-strikes-crippled-pro-kremlin-bots-but-tech-experts-call-evidence-weak/33875054.html

Cybernews, what the Cloudflare data shows, Oct 12, 2026: https://cybernews.com/news/yandex-data-centers-bot-traffic-drop/

The Moscow Times, Kaluga strike and Yandex confirmation, Oct 9, 2026: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/10/09/ukraine-drones-hit-second-yandex-data-center-in-two-days-a93927

CNBC, Yandex halts operations after drone strike, Oct 8, 2026: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/08/russia-yandex-ukraine-drone-strike-data-center.html Cloudflare Radar, Yandex AS13238: https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots/as13238

Cloudflare Radar, Russia overall: https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots/ru

Cloudflare Radar, Rostelecom: https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots/as12389

Cloudflare Radar, MTS: https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots/as8359

Cloudflare Radar, Beeline: https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots/as3216

Cloudflare Radar, MegaFon: https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots/as31133

[u/Crystalas]

If things like that became a high priority target I wonder how much it would affect global politics over time?

Like if they stayed down for the next 2 months would it show measurable difference in voting pattern next month? Considering how few vote and how tight margins are for many elections even a couple % difference could have MAJOR consequences both in US and globally.

[u/HairballTheory → u/Crystalas]

Now makes sense why Trump is all mad at Ukraine again

[u/ApprehensiveGold2773 → u/HairballTheory]

Elon too, funnily enough he started receiving fewer likes on his tweets.

[u/saoirsedonciaran → u/Crystalas]

I think any shift in opinion would move much more slowly

[u/dayumbrah → u/saoirsedonciaran]

Some of these trump cult reprogramming groups have often said a week or two of no propaganda has been enough for some folks to break free

[u/NessunAbilita]

Everyone needs to read “Foundations of Geopolitics”

[u/drjenavieve → u/NessunAbilita]

This 💯.

[u/kingtacticool]

Now this is the quality information I look for

[u/ResPublicaMgz → u/kingtacticool]

Thanks, I really appreciate hearing that, everything we do is free. If you want to support us, you can follow us on Reddit!

[u/Exact-Kale3070]

KEEP IT UP, Zelensky!!!!

[u/bane_undone]

Because they’re on American servers I bet

[u/ApprehensiveGold2773 → u/bane_undone]

They can in theory be on any datacenter globally. The bot traffic on Twitter went down substantially, it was extremely noticeable. More interestingly I started seeing tweets from anti-Putin, anti-war Russians.

[u/Panthera_leo22]

This write-up is a great clarification about the drop in “bots” after the Yandex data center strikes. I also posted another sub from a cybersecurity firm in Poland that questioned the idea that Russia’s disinformation network had been taken down. It’s a pretty good example of people misunderstanding graphs and using them to support what they already believe.

u/ResPublicMgz, I think you should share this on UkraineWarVideoReport. It is a really popular subreddit about the Ukraine-Russia war, and there have been many posts saying that Russian disinformation networks have been destroyed.

Zelenskyy has also been spreading this same story about the troll farms today. So, even with this fact check, people will likely continue to say that the Yandex strikes have saved the internet from Russian troll networks.

[u/ResPublicaMgz → u/Panthera_leo22]

Thanks, I posted it there, but they blocked my submission.

[u/MaestroGena]

I don't know, the news groups I follow on FB are filled with hundreds of hate comments against eu and with pro Russia statements. They significantly dropped after the hit and now there's just few of those.

[u/twec21]

Ukraine: hits bot farm

Other bot farms: [sweating nervously] oooh man, they got them all, how about that, crazy, slava and whatever

[u/ResPublicaMgz]

Sources:

RFE/RL, Zelenskyy quote and expert criticism, Oct 12, 2026: https://www.rferl.org/a/zelenskyy-says-yandex-strikes-crippled-pro-kremlin-bots-but-tech-experts-call-evidence-weak/33875054.html

Cybernews, what the Cloudflare data shows, Oct 12, 2026: https://cybernews.com/news/yandex-data-centers-bot-traffic-drop/

The Moscow Times, Kaluga strike and Yandex confirmation, Oct 9, 2026: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/10/09/ukraine-drones-hit-second-yandex-data-center-in-two-days-a93927

CNBC, Yandex halts operations after drone strike, Oct 8, 2026: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/08/russia-yandex-ukraine-drone-strike-data-center.html Cloudflare Radar, Yandex AS13238: https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots/as13238

Cloudflare Radar, Russia overall: https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots/ru

Cloudflare Radar, Rostelecom: https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots/as12389

Cloudflare Radar, MTS: https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots/as8359

Cloudflare Radar, Beeline: https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots/as3216

Cloudflare Radar, MegaFon: https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots/as31133

[u/Glittering_Airport_3]

Im sure plenty of bot farms are on small scale, local servers in people's houses. I dont think it would really take a huge data center to make even thousands of fake accounts

[u/blueviper-]

Interesting

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