Russians locked out of bank accounts and apartments as Ukraine hits data centers

The strikes that took place over several days earlier this month were the first publicized attacks on Russian data centers.

From accessing their money to ordering a taxi or takeout, millions of Russians were feeling the impact of Ukrainian strikes on the data centers of the country’s internet giant Yandex in their daily life. “I ended up in a situation where I had absolutely no money. Well, I had the money, but it was inaccessible,” said Irina, a blogger from St. Petersburg, who had not been able to access her money for four days when she spoke with NBC News last week. Irina, who like several other people did not want her last name shared while she was speaking with a foreign news organization about a sensitive matter, said her rent was due the day the first outages happened, when she hoped “that it would be fixed in a few hours.” Days later, she still had no access to money to pay for utilities or even food for her small child.

The strikes that took place over several days this month were the first publicized attacks on Russian data centers as Ukraine seeks to bring the war home for Russians. The disruption hit myriad services provided by Yandex, a tech giant akin to Google whose services are deeply integrated into daily life in Russia and whose digital infrastructure other third-party platforms rely on. Many people took to social media to