Russia widens attacks to Ukrainian data centres and ISPs, cutting internet for 100,000 homes

Russia widens its targets to Ukraine's connectivity layer

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia has broadened its strike campaign to include Ukraine's data centres and internet providers, describing the shift as an assault on everyday life rather than purely military assets. According to the BBC, the escalation has already left around 100,000 households in Kyiv and the surrounding region without internet, and some companies are moving data out of damaged facilities and abroad.

Writing on social media on Friday, Zelensky said the strikes affect people's ability to "stay connected, study, work", and argued that foreign businesses, data centres and internet providers had all become targets, urging the world to make Russia feel the consequences of what he called its terror.

What was hit, and what Moscow says

A Russian drone struck the Inkom business centre in central Kyiv on Friday, killing four people and damaging a data centre operated by Datagroup. Kyiv's mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, said seven people in total were killed and 59 injured during the overnight attacks. In a separate strike, a drone hit a residential building in the Pecherskyi district, killing a 14-year-old boy whom Israel's foreign ministry identified as an Israeli citizen.

Russia's defence ministry confirmed it had targeted the Datagroup site, claiming the facility was used by Ukrainian military intelligence. It also said its forces had struck several other data processing and telecommunications centres over recent days, naming New-Telco, United DC, Kyivstar and Parkovyi.

Datagroup said engineers were still assessing the damage, but that all services "continue to operate from backup sites".

The disruption reached well beyond the capital. Officials in Lutsk, in north-western Ukraine, said electronic information boards at public transport stops had stopped working because of damage to data centres in Kyiv.

Kyiv moves to protect critical communications

Late on Friday, Zelensky said "additional decisions" had been made at a meeting with Ukraine's top defence and security officials to protect data centres and other critical communications facilities so they keep operating continuously.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha argued that the targeted infrastructure is civilian, not military: rapid alerts about incoming missiles and drones save lives, he said, and those alerts depend on the systems now under fire.

Serhii Beskrestnov, Zelensky's adviser on defence technologies, conceded that local disruptions are likely and that the cost of internet services could rise to cover repairs. But he stressed that Ukraine's network is highly decentralised and the country "will not be left without internet access".

The campaign against connectivity sits within a wider intensification. According to the BBC, Moscow has stepped up strikes on Ukraine's energy and railway infrastructure ahead of winter, while Ukraine has kept hitting Russian oil refineries and logistics hubs it says help finance the war.

Pressure and sabotage beyond the front line

Two related developments reported by the BBC frame the escalation. Poland's national prosecutors have opened an investigation into an arson attack on a Starlink ground station in Wola Krobowska on Wednesday, saying there is a "reasonable suspicion" the perpetrators acted on the orders of Russian special services; Moscow has not commented. The station relays internet traffic through Poland to countries including Ukraine.

The European Union, meanwhile, agreed to release €6.6bn for Ukraine, a package the bloc's top diplomat Kaja Kallas described as "good news for Ukraine and bad news for Russia". It includes €900m for the EU's military assistance mission and a €1bn fund for joint procurement of equipment.

President Vladimir Putin, speaking to reporters late on Friday, said Moscow would "give careful thought" to resuming direct negotiations with Kyiv, while insisting Ukraine "must feel our retaliatory strikes".

Why it matters

The deliberate targeting of data centres and ISPs marks a shift in how modern warfare treats civilian digital infrastructure. In Ukraine, connectivity is not a convenience: it carries air-raid alerts, supports emergency response, and keeps remote work and schooling running. Striking hosting facilities also produces disproportionate ripple effects, as the darkened transit boards in Lutsk, hundreds of kilometres from Kyiv, demonstrate.

For operators everywhere, the episode underlines why decentralisation, off-site backups and cross-border failover matter: Datagroup kept services alive from backup sites even after the strike on its building. And if Poland's suspicions about the Starlink arson prove correct, the campaign extends to covert sabotage of the infrastructure that keeps Ukraine connected from outside its borders.