English
Русский
Image: dengi.ua
Ukraine’s internet infrastructure is facing a new threat after a series of strikes damaged data centres and network facilities in Kyiv, disrupting connectivity and prompting the government to prepare for the possibility of further attacks on critical digital infrastructure.
Between September 23 and 25, Russian strikes damaged several digital infrastructure facilities in Kyiv. Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation said the disruptions affected around 100,000 households in Kyiv and the surrounding Kyiv region. Infrastructure belonging to providers including UTELS, Pavutyna, Etherlink and CityHost was damaged, while MiroHost reported the destruction of a data centre hosting its Ukrainian infrastructure.
The consequences were decidedly physical for an industry that often makes the internet sound almost weightless. Damage to a single facility can affect equipment belonging to several providers, disrupt backbone routes and leave customers without connectivity. Domonet, Kievnet and Faust also reported problems after equipment at data centres was damaged. CityHost said it was attempting to deploy backup systems on equipment located outside Ukraine.
Geographical redundancy has already helped some companies keep most of their infrastructure online. MiroHost founder Oleksandr Olshansky said around 95% of the company’s customers use infrastructure outside Ukraine, allowing their services to continue operating. In this case, overseas infrastructure was not merely another line in a disaster-recovery diagram. It became a practical way to keep services running after a local facility was destroyed.
Ukraine Prepares Data Centres for a World Without a Safe Address
Against this backdrop, Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said in an interview with TSN that the threat to the country’s digital and communications infrastructure remains high. He said the protection of data centres and mobile communications had been discussed at a meeting of Ukraine’s military leadership.
According to Koretskyi, the government and private companies are combining conventional protection measures with what he described as non-standard solutions. Some infrastructure is being considered for underground locations, some data is being moved to cloud storage, while other equipment is being physically relocated outside Ukraine. In some cases, all three approaches may be used together.
The resulting strategy increasingly resembles a layered redundancy system. If a server cannot be reliably protected at its original location, its data can be replicated in the cloud. If cloud storage alone is insufficient, infrastructure can be placed abroad. Where local computing capacity remains necessary, protected underground facilities are being considered.
This is not simply a theoretical exercise. In June, Vodafone Ukraine presented a project for an underground data centre in Ukraine that is expected to be connected to the planned Kardesa subsea fibre-optic cable project.
Ukrainian Servers Are Increasingly Getting an Overseas Address
The latest attacks have gone beyond individual server rooms. On September 27, Russia said it had struck data centres in Kyiv, while Reuters reported that the headquarters of Ukraine’s largest mobile operator, Kyivstar, had also been hit. Russia’s Defence Ministry separately said a data centre belonging to Vodafone Ukraine was among the targets. Ukrainian authorities reported that a Kyiv data centre had been struck and that people were injured. Reuters said it could not independently verify all claims concerning the specific targets and damage.
Aftermath of the strike on a Ukrainian data center. Image: focus.ua, State Emergency Service of Ukraine
For the internet industry, the situation is changing the logic of infrastructure design itself. Data centres have traditionally been built around risks such as fire, equipment failure, power outages and human error. Physical destruction of the facility is now another factor that operators have to consider.
That exposes a rather earthly weakness in the cloud. Data may live in the cloud, but the servers handling users’ requests still have to live somewhere. Cloud infrastructure does not eliminate geography; it simply gives operators more ways to distribute its consequences.
Ukraine’s combination of underground facilities, cloud storage and overseas data centres is turning geographical distribution into a central element of communications resilience. In this model, servers effectively receive several addresses at once, just in case one of them suddenly stops existing.