Overview
- Sberbank confirmed its Balakovo data processing centre was attacked on Wednesday, Oct. 14, and said core banking systems and services continued to operate and no staff were hurt.
- Independent outage monitors and users reported widespread disruptions to banking apps, Sberbank’s GigaChat, delivery and cloud platforms across Russia after the strike.
- Saratov regional officials reported one civilian killed and damage to homes near Balakovo while Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down large numbers of incoming drones during the night.
- The Balakovo hit follows a string of strikes earlier this week that damaged multiple Yandex data centres, and Ukrainian-linked groups said the attacks were retaliation for earlier Russian strikes on Ukrainian data infrastructure.
- The Balakovo site was planned to host one of Russia’s largest supercomputers but neither companies nor officials have confirmed whether high-performance hardware was damaged, leaving unclear how long the attacks could slow Russia’s AI and computing programs.