A drone attack overnight on 8 October caused a fire that hit part of Yandex's data center in Sasovo, Ryazan Oblast, about 580 km from Ukraine, and the site is fully stopped, the Russian tech company told Russian media. The data center sits on the grounds of Sasta, a sanctioned machine-tool plant, Russian outlet Astra said, citing Wikimapia data. Astra's OSINT analyst found from eyewitness footage that the fire hit the plant.

Since late September, Russia has been striking data centers in Kyiv that keep Ukraine's internet and online services running. Now a drone attack has stopped one of the data centers that Russia's largest tech company relies on.

Yandex counts the damage

Yandex warned that some services may be unavailable, while its core services kept running and no one was hurt. Ryazan Oblast Governor Pavel Malkov claimed two drones were downed, a roof caught fire at an enterprise in the Sasovo district, and windows were blown out in several homes.

The power failure took down a wide range of Yandex Cloud infrastructure, including computing capacity, networks, data storage, databases, Kubernetes, cloud services, AI, and security and monitoring systems, Ukrainian outlet ZN.ua reported, citing Exilenova+.

Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported that the plant was hit, without naming an attacker. The channel said Sasta, which claims a place on Russia's register of defense-industry companies, makes computer-controlled machine tools, including five-axis machining centers, and previously supplied the Tactical Missiles Corporation (KTRV) and Roscosmos. The plant's value to the arms industry lies in machines that cut precision parts, not in finished weapons, the channel said.

Citing Exilenova+, Militarnyi reported that Ukraine's Defense Forces hit the plant. It also linked Sasta to Iskander missile supply chains. No source has said whether the plant or the data center was the target, and no Ukrainian official has claimed the Sasovo strike. Sasta has been under US sanctions since November 2023, UK sanctions since February 2024, and Ukrainian sanctions since April 2025, a sanctions database shows.

Salavat: Kyiv reports a hit

Ukrainian forces hit the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat complex in Bashkortostan, about 1,380 km from the front line, causing a fire, Ukraine's General Staff said. It said the complex processes up to 10 million metric tons of hydrocarbons a year and serves Russia's armed forces. Its key unit, the ELOU-AVT-6 primary oil refining unit launched in 2012, can process 6 million metric tons a year, Militarnyi reported. Astra's analyst placed the fire a few kilometers outside Salavat, possibly near the refinery.

Salavat oil refinery moment of attack pic.twitter.com/bUxuRshSK1

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 8, 2026

Salavat Mayor Marat Zagidullin claimed that debris from several drones fell in the industrial zone that morning and started a fire.

"The enterprise continues to work," he said.

Astra noted earlier hits on the complex on 24 September 2025, on 14 July 2026, when refining fully stopped, and on 13 August 2026.

Russia's strikes on Ukraine's data centers

Russia has repeatedly hit data centers in Kyiv since 23 September. Strikes hit the COSMONOVA data center twice, the second time knocking it out, and the Parkovyi data center stopped working completely on 1 October after a series of strikes. In early October, Russia destroyed the dline.ua data center in Kyiv.

A reported Ukrainian drone strike has interrupted operations at a Yandex data centre in Russia’s Ryazan region, while another attack was reported at a Gazprom-owned refinery.

A Ukrainian drone attack has reportedly forced the closure of a Yandex data centre in Russia’s Ryazan region, causing a fire and disrupting part of the company’s infrastructure. Shares in the Russian technology group fell by more than three per cent in early Moscow trading on Thursday, 8 October.

The installation in Sasovo was affected during overnight strikes on Russian territory. Yandex said it was working to restore affected infrastructure, while its principal consumer services remained operational. The incident has raised questions about the vulnerability of Russia’s digital economy to Ukraine’s long-range strike campaign.

Fire at Sasovo technology facility

The affected data centre began operating in 2014 in buildings formerly occupied by the Sasta machine-tool manufacturing plant. Yandex subsequently connected the installation to Moscow by fibre-optic communications links as part of its wider computing infrastructure.

Ryazan regional governor Pavel Malkov said Russian air defences intercepted two drones over the region. He reported a fire on the roof of an industrial building in the Sasovo district and damage to windows in nearby private homes. No casualties were reported.

According to a statement on the incident, the situation had been brought under control while work to restore infrastructure continued. Yandex said its main consumer services remained operational.

The company’s cloud division also reported an electricity supply problem affecting an availability zone known as ru-central1-b. Clients were advised to use alternative zones where necessary to maintain service continuity.

Yandex shares decline

Yandex shares dropped by approximately 3.4 per cent to 3,568.5 roubles in early trading on the Moscow Exchange. The decline followed news of the fire, although a single trading session cannot establish the long-term financial cost of the disruption.

Yandex operates search, advertising, navigation, artificial intelligence and cloud computing services. Its infrastructure therefore supports commercial users as well as the company’s own applications. The duration of the interruption, the extent of physical damage and the cost of repairs will determine the wider impact.

Investors can follow the company’s quoted share price as further details emerge.

Gazprom refinery also reportedly targeted

In a separate development, explosions and a fire were reported on Thursday near the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat refining and petrochemical complex in Russia’s Republic of Bashkortostan, around 1,400 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. The precise location of the fire and the extent of damage had not been independently established.

The Gazprom-owned complex processes hydrocarbon feedstock and produces petrol, diesel, fuel oil and petrochemicals. It has previously been targeted by Ukrainian drones. The latest reported incident comes amid repeated attacks on Russian refining and fuel infrastructure.

Russia’s technology sector faces new risks

Ukraine’s long-range economic campaign has focused heavily on oil refineries, fuel stores, military production plants and transport infrastructure. A strike affecting a major data centre introduces another category of vulnerability: the computing equipment and supporting utilities used by the digital economy.

Such sites serve businesses, financial institutions and industrial enterprises, and can also support defence-related activities. However, no publicly verified evidence establishes that the Sasovo data centre was directly involved in Russian military operations.

Damage to power supplies, cooling systems and network connections can interrupt services without necessarily destroying servers. Operators with geographically distributed facilities may be able to shift workloads to unaffected locations. The suspension of one centre therefore does not mean that Russia’s internet infrastructure has ceased functioning.

Economic pressure on Moscow

The attacks coincide with Russia’s plans for substantial military expenditure in 2027. The draft federal budget envisages considerable government spending and borrowing as Moscow continues its war against Ukraine.

Ukraine’s strikes on economic infrastructure are intended to increase the cost of maintaining Russia’s invasion. Disruption to energy facilities can affect fuel production and revenue, while attacks on technology and industrial sites may interrupt wider commercial and logistical operations.

The cumulative effect depends on the severity and duration of the damage. Neither the reported temporary closure of the Yandex facility nor preliminary accounts of the Salavat fire establish the scale of lasting losses.

The incidents nonetheless illustrate the exposure of Russian industrial and technology assets far beyond the Ukrainian border, as Kyiv increasingly targets infrastructure that supports the country’s economy.

More than 50 Russian companies could default on their bonds this year, the most since 2009, a rating-agency analyst told Russian newspaper Izvestia, which reported it on 6 October.

Russia's wartime economy is straining under high interest rates, and the budget is too: the 2026 deficit has nearly doubled from the earlier forecast to a record $88 billion, with more deficits planned for the next three years as Moscow raises taxes to fund the war and plans its biggest defense budget since the full-scale invasion began.

A default is a situation in which a company cannot make promised interest payments to investors on time or repay borrowed money. If a payment is not made by the agreed deadline, the company becomes delinquent, which under certain conditions is recognized as a default.

So far this year, 20 companies have defaulted for the first time, compared with 24 in all of 2025, said Mikhail Nikonov of the Expert RA rating agency. Most of the companies that missed payments are small issuers of high-yield bonds, Izvestia reported.

In 2026, Russian companies have missed payments totaling 41 billion rubles (about $490 million), compared with 34 billion rubles (about $410 million) the previous year, according to investment bank Sinara.

Russia faces a new wave of corporate defaults

By the end of 2026, the number of Russian companies unable to service their ruble-denominated debt on time could reach 40–50, the highest level since 2010, said Pavel Zholobov, junior managing director at the NRA rating agency.

The number of bond defaults in 2026 has already reached its highest level in a decade, Zholobov said. Similar figures were recorded in the mid-2010s: in 2014, 35 companies missed payments; in 2015, 52 did so; and in 2016, there were 44 issuers. This occurred in part after Western sanctions were imposed on Russia over its annexation of Crimea and its war in Donbas, as well as amid a halving of oil prices and a sharp weakening of the ruble.

There were more defaults only in 2009. At the time, amid the fallout from the global financial crisis, more than 100 issuers faced payment problems, while the volume of distressed debt reached nearly 200 billion rubles, Zholobov noted.

High interest rates put pressure on companies

This time, the main reason for companies' difficulties in making bond payments has been the prolonged period of high interest rates, which has continued since 2023. Companies are raising financing at high interest rates but are unable to refinance their debt on more favorable terms, explained Ekaterina Sidorova, head of the Foreign Exchange, Commodities and Debt Markets Department at SberCIB Investment Research.

At the same time, the situation does not yet resemble a systemic debt crisis: defaults are primarily being recorded among companies with low credit ratings and high debt burdens, Sidorova said.

If a company fails to repay bond debt, it is given 10 business days to meet its obligations. If it fails to do so, the company may offer investors a restructuring—for example, by postponing payments in exchange for a higher interest rate.

The number of defaults will remain high in 2027, Sidorova believes.

High interest rates were a response to accelerating inflation in Russia. Domestic demand was outpacing production, Russia's Central Bank said in October 2023. Sanctions over the war and rising defense spending had also hit the economy and the ruble, which had lost about 25% against the dollar that year. The bank raised its key rate from 7.5% in the first half of 2023 to 15% by the fall.

Ukraine targets Russia's oil industry to weaken its war economy

Ukraine is also seeking to weaken Russia's economy as part of efforts to reduce its ability to finance the war. In particular, Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara said strikes on oil refineries are aimed at "bleeding the Russian war machine" and destroying its military and economic potential. According to the ministry, the attacks have knocked out more than 51% of Russia's oil refining capacity.

In the first half of July, Russian oil refineries processed about 3.9 million barrels of oil per day—the lowest level since March 2005. Due to the production cuts, Moscow was also forced to restrict fuel exports.

The European Commission is preparing to give fossil-fuel exporters another year of flexibility under the EU’s methane regime as Brussels responds to high energy prices, pressure on European refineries and concerns over security of supply.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced an additional year of flexibility for energy exporters facing new EU methane requirements, marking the latest adjustment to climate legislation as Brussels attempts to contain rising energy costs.

Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, von der Leyen said Europe remained exposed to high energy prices and volatile international fossil-fuel markets and confirmed that exporters would receive “one more year” to prepare for the methane rules.

She also announced a strategic dialogue with the European refining sector aimed at reducing costs and protecting supplies, according to the Commission’s published remarks.

The announcement affects a regulation that has increasingly become an energy-security issue rather than solely an emissions policy.

The EU’s Methane Regulation, adopted in 2024, introduced progressively stricter requirements for companies supplying oil, natural gas and coal to the European market. Importers have already been required to provide information about the origin of fuel and the systems used to measure and reduce methane emissions.

A more demanding stage was due from January 2027. Importers would have to demonstrate that fuel supplied under contracts concluded or renewed since August 2024 came from producers operating monitoring, reporting and verification systems equivalent to EU standards.

The rules are technically complex because European importers do not always buy directly from producers. Gas and oil may pass through traders, hubs, blending systems and several contractual relationships before reaching Europe.

The Commission’s own guidance for importers acknowledges those difficulties, particularly where companies must trace production information through complicated supply chains.

EU Today highlighted the problem in July, when an International Energy Agency assessment raised concerns that the rules could restrict Europe’s available oil supply. The dispute has since intensified because European fuel markets have become considerably tighter.

That pressure can also be seen in the cost of imported energy. EU Today reported last month that the value of EU petroleum imports had risen by 55.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2026 even though the physical volume purchased increased by only 1.2 per cent.

Von der Leyen’s intervention therefore comes against a different market background from the one in which the methane legislation was originally adopted.

The Commission has not abandoned its objective of reducing methane emissions from fossil-fuel production. Methane remains one of the most powerful greenhouse gases, and the regulation is intended to use the size of the European energy market to influence production standards outside the EU.

Instead, Brussels is attempting to adjust implementation so that regulatory requirements do not further restrict supply at a time of elevated energy prices.

The precise legal form of the additional year of flexibility has not yet been detailed in von der Leyen’s announcement. Existing requirements remain contained in Regulation (EU) 2024/1787, meaning that changes to deadlines or enforcement will have to be translated into the appropriate legal or administrative measures.

The Commission had already moved towards greater flexibility earlier this year. In July it issued recommendations designed to clarify contractual arrangements and advised national authorities on the application of penalties to importers while security-of-supply concerns persisted.

The broader problem is European energy competitiveness.

Von der Leyen told Parliament that Brussels intends to begin a strategic dialogue with refineries. European refining capacity has contracted over the longer term, leaving the continent more dependent on imported diesel and other finished petroleum products when individual plants close or external supply routes are disrupted.

The Commission is also expected to propose measures aimed at increasing electricity’s share of European energy consumption as part of its attempt to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels.

The latest methane adjustment therefore fits a wider shift in Brussels. Climate targets remain formally intact, but implementation is increasingly being examined alongside energy prices, industrial competitiveness and the security of physical supplies.

The extra year gives exporters additional time. It also gives the Commission another year to resolve a question that has become much more urgent in 2026: how far Europe can tighten conditions on imported energy while remaining heavily dependent on those imports.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is set to sign long-delayed agreements with five oil refineries, unlocking more than $6 billion in planned upgrades to modernize aging plants and cut reliance on fuel imports, officials said. But industry warnings that changes to the financial framework could derail the projects overshadowed the announcement. The agreements with Pak-Arab Refinery Ltd., Pakistan ... Read more

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