Ukraine opens a new battle front against Russia.. What does targeting “Yandex” mean?

(CNN) - “There is always something broken, or something that does not work,” says Anton, a 31-year-old from St. Petersburg, Russia. He returned home one night to find darkness waiting for him; His smart lights weren't working.

These lamps are based on the technologies of the Russian company "Yandex", a technology company that provides a wide range of digital and Internet services, including cloud computing, search engines, maps, artificial intelligence, transportation services, and food delivery. It is an integrated system that resembles a combination of Google, Uber, and Amazon.

"It's a strange feeling sitting in a dark room with no way to light it," Anton told CNN. "It felt like a power outage, but for a completely unusual reason."

Since October 8, Ukrainian attacks have caused damage to three of the five major data centers that operate Yandex services, disrupting the daily lives of millions of users. In Russia and neighboring countries - such as Kazakhstan and Belarus - these outages affected various services, ranging from electronic payments and commercial operations, to search engines, navigation services, taxi ordering, and food delivery.

These strikes reveal weaknesses in Russia's domestic digital economy. It is an economy that Moscow encouraged to develop to reduce dependence on Western technology in light of the harsh sanctions and the withdrawal of foreign companies following the comprehensive invasion of Ukraine. But these data centers have now emerged as “the fatal weakness in this system.”

Kiev described the attacks as retaliation for Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centers in September — attacks that the Russian Defense Ministry sarcastically described as “digital purges,” highlighting how critical digital infrastructure has become another battlefront in the war.

For Anton, a history teacher who only gave his first name for privacy and safety reasons, this was an additional reason to feel exhausted by what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation,” which is now in its fifth year.

Over the past year, the Kremlin has also imposed “security” internet blackouts, restricted the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) and blocked popular messaging apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp.

"Every time you face something like this, you feel very upset," Anton told CNN. “For me, all that comes to mind in those moments is how sick and fed up I am with (President Vladimir) Putin.”

He added that those around him do not blame Ukraine when such attacks occur, but instead wonder: “When will all this finally end?”

He continued, “There is a general state of fatigue; Fatigue resulting from the war as a whole. And every time, I find myself thinking again: Damn, how exhausting all of this is! "It is very ridiculous to live under such conditions."

Russians are largely protected from the deadly horrors on the front lines, but Ukraine has sought to dispel the illusion that the consequences of war are beyond them by launching drone attacks deep into Russian territory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described these attacks as “far-reaching sanctions” in response to the Kremlin’s practices in Ukraine.