Russian $1 billion data hub hit in Ukrainian deep strike

For months Ukrainian long-range strikes have hammered oil refineries and, more recently, the server farms of internet giant Yandex.

Now the campaign has reached the state banking system, more than 500 miles from the Ukrainian border, into territory the Kremlin considered a safe rear.

Overnight into October 14, 2026, swarms of drones struck the industrial zone of Balakovo in Russia’s Saratov region, hitting a Sberbank mega data center still under construction and a steel plant nearby.

Fires were visible from space on NASA’s FIRMS satellite feed, according to Ukrainian outlet UA News.

The targeted Sberbank facility is a 122.2-billion-ruble project, more than $1 billion, designed to become one of the largest data centers in Russia.

A server fortress for Russia’s biggest bank

When finished, the complex is planned to host around 3,000 server racks and up to 120,000 servers with an electrical capacity of up to 82 megawatts, industry publication Baxtel reported when Sberbank broke ground on the site in September 2021.

The facility was intended to run the state-owned bank’s IT backbone and host the government’s GosTech digital services platform.

Construction is not complete, but some modules are already in phased operation, Ukrainian outlet Glavred wrote, citing the OSINT monitoring channel Exilenova+.

Russian authorities have not identified the targets, only acknowledging damage to residential buildings.

Also hit was the MZ Balakovo metallurgical plant, a producer of reinforcing bars and long steel products with capacity for more than a million tons a year.

Photographic evidence showed damage inside the plant’s industrial zone, Ukrainian outlet 112.ua reported, citing Espreso TV.

Governor confirms death and damage

Saratov Governor Roman Busargin acknowledged the strike. One person was killed and several residential buildings were damaged, he said in a Telegram post cited by Glavred.

The region experienced widespread power outages after the attack.

Balakovo sits on the east bank of the Volga, home to a major nuclear power plant and a key hydropower station.

The city is roughly 530 miles (850 km) from Ukrainian-controlled territory.

From Yandex to Sberbank

The raid comes just days after a Ukrainian drone strike on October 11 on a Yandex Cloud data center in Russia’s Vladimir region, an attack that caused widespread service disruptions.

Together, the two strikes point to a widening target set: Ukrainian long-range forces are now pressing against Russia’s digital spine in both the private tech sector and the state banking system.

Sberbank, formally PJSC Sberbank, is Russia’s dominant bank and a core piece of state-controlled infrastructure, which has made the Balakovo complex a particularly visible symbol of Russian digital sovereignty.

Residents in Balakovo woke Wednesday to downed power lines, canceled school classes, and news that Saratov Gagarin International Airport, roughly 130 km away, had instituted emergency flight restrictions, according to the Ukrainian coverage.

Russian emergency services have not released a full damage assessment of either the Sberbank site or the steel plant.

This article is made and published by Jens Asbjørn Bogen, who may have used AI in the preparation