Ukraine's new strategy – attacking Russians' mobiles

In a short time, Ukraine has carried out several attacks against premises belonging to the data company Yandex, reports Sveriges Radio.

Yandex is described as Russia's Google. Their services are used daily by millions of Russians and thousands of companies rely on the systems. These include taxi apps, dating sites and digital keys, according to the Financial Times.

- It's not just a search function anymore. Now Yandex has a plethora of different services, such as ordering goods and services. The Russians, just like many in Sweden these days, are very dependent on various services on the internet, says Jakob Hedenskog, analyst at the Center for Eastern European Studies at the Foreign Policy Institute.

Ukraine has attacked three out of six Yandex facilities in recent weeks. This has led to employees not being able to open their job files, mailboxes are down and signs showing when the bus is due to leave have stopped working. In addition, many Muscovites have been locked out of their homes because some locks rely on Yandex, writes the Financial Times.

Even the Yandex payment system, equivalent to Apple Pay or Google Pay, has suffered problems due to the attacks.

Ukraine's starting point is to attack the infrastructure that helps the Russian armed forces in the war against Ukraine, says Hedenskog. For example, Yandex provides cloud services to the military. That "ordinary Russians" are affected is a side effect.

- But from a Ukrainian perspective, it is not negative that ordinary Russians get to feel the war. That it affects their comfortable existence, says Hedenskog.

What is known about how the attacks on Yandex affect the military?

- Quite a lot. It had an immediate effect on the armed forces. These data centers house Yandex supercomputers. By damaging these, Ukraine strikes directly against Russia's technological development, cloud services and advanced AI chatbots – systems that could potentially be used for military planning, encryption and logistics.

- It also affects various Russian bots that spread Russian propaganda and narratives on social media. Another desired side effect on the part of Ukraine.

Yandex was founded in 1997 in Russia. Since 2024, it has one hundred percent Russian owners again, including the oil and gas company Lukoil.

The attacks on Yandex follow Ukrainian attacks on Russian fuel facilities. The recurring attacks have led to fuel shortages and kilometer-long queues at Russian gas stations.

Earlier this week, Ukraine also attacked a data center belonging to Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, causing disruption to users, according to the Moscow Times.

Intelligence data from NATO, and not least the US, is a prerequisite for Ukraine to be able to strike targets deep in Russia. In the past week, doubts have begun to grow about whether the US is still sharing its intelligence with Ukraine. For example, warnings of upcoming attacks have not been forthcoming in Ukraine.

Without American intelligence, it may be difficult for Ukraine to succeed in its long-range attacks.

- To the extent that Ukraine has struck targets far into Russia, it is dependent on American intelligence information, says Jakob Hedenskog.