Daniel Wolfram
Damaged infrastructure has pushed Russian cloud capacity to 90 percent, forcing Vladimir Putin to ration server power while companies scramble to flee abroad in search of new data centres.
Russian data centres are facing a capacity shortage after being attacked by Ukrainian drones.
Those drones struck all over Russia in October. Ukrainian drone attacks destroyed server facilities in several regions, disrupting systems used by major banks, online retailers, and the national tax agency.
The damage proved that digital infrastructure is just as exposed to war as any factory or bridge.
Searching for new data centres
Russian data companies are now rushing to find computing space beyond national borders.
Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that interest in building Russian data centres in neighbouring Kazakhstan is mounting, with industry insiders confirming that several businesses have already begun moving critical systems abroad.
“Companies are reconsidering their approach to business continuity and are looking for a backup site that does not depend on the network and energy infrastructure of the primary data centre,” said Yevgeny Svidersky, vice president for cloud services at ITGlobal.com, in comments to Kommersant, cited by pro-Ukrainian idependent news media United24 Media.
Running out of room and data
Cloud capacity across Russia is already 90 per cent full, according to Kommersant, leaving Moscow with roughly 50 megawatts of available power. That can only support a handful of large facilities across Russia.
To ease the pressure, the Russian government is considering building AI data centres in Belarus and Kazakhstan, business news outlet RBC reported. Private providers are also negotiating backup arrangements in allied nations to spread the operational risk.
“In practice, this is about geographic redundancy rather than moving the main infrastructure. For example, some market players are already looking for backup sites simultaneously in Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, while some cloud providers are discussing with clients the possibility of reserving capacity in friendly countries,” said Alexey Borshchov, an AI project business architect at the Avandok ecosystem, told RBC.
Meanwhile, the state is tightening its grip on whatever capacity remains. President Vladimir Putin recently ordered private data centres to set aside 10 per cent of their power for government websites, independent outlet Astra reported. Companies have 10 days to comply. And state officials can seize that reserved capacity on just a day’s notice.
