Yandex outages cut automated web traffic, but not proven propaganda bots
Ukraine struck three Yandex data centres, disrupting services including search, ride-hailing and delivery, according to RFE/RL and CBC. Cloudflare Radar recorded automated requests from Yandex’s network falling sharply, but researchers told RFE/RL and CBC that the measure largely reflects Yandex’s web crawlers, not propaganda accounts on social media.
Bottom line — Cloudflare’s traffic drop shows a Yandex infrastructure disruption, not a confirmed fall in pro-Kremlin social media activity.
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Cloudflare Radar tracks automated HTTP requests from Yandex’s network; it does not measure posts on individual social platforms, CBC reports.
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At 02:00 UTC on October 11, automated requests were 0.3% of the chart’s maximum, compared with 88.2% at the same time a week earlier, according to The Deep Dive’s analysis cited by UNITED24 Media.
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RFE/RL reports the strikes hit Yandex facilities on October 8, October 9 and October 11; the latest attack forced the Vladimir facility to suspend operations.
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The outages disrupted Yandex services including ride-hailing, payments, food ordering, cloud computing and chatbots, RFE/RL reports.
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Yandex Go service interruptions were also reported in Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, according to RFE/RL.
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Researchers quoted by CBC said influence operations use accounts across platforms and are unlikely to depend entirely on the facilities that were hit.