Rostelecom Calls for 'Doomsday' Data Centers to Counter Drone Attacks and Infrastructure Risks
Rostelecom executive Valery Ermakov has urged Russian companies to build geographically distributed backup data centers, dubbed 'doomsday' facilities, to ensure service recovery after site losses. The recommendation follows drone strikes that disabled three Yandex data centers in Sasovo, Kaluga, and Vladimir, disrupting both internal services and Yandex Cloud clients. Ermakov explained that previous centralized infrastructure, built for economic efficiency, is no longer viable under changed threat models that now include physical attacks previously considered unthinkable. He advocated a micro-cellular architecture with services spread across many sites connected by high-speed links, while warning that Russian backbone networks are overloaded and much fiber optic infrastructure dates back 20-30 years. Rostelecom positioned its TEA NEXT line running from Kaliningrad to Mongolia as a source of additional capacity to address potential backbone shortages. Yandex responded to the incidents by accelerating client data migration to partner cloud providers.
AntiMalwareOct 14, 2026Translated from Russian