Ukraine’s drone strikes spur hasty Russian plans for underground data centers

Russian tech companies are scrambling to harden and hide their data centers underground after Ukrainian drone strikes damaged facilities housing AI supercomputers and disrupted cloud services for millions of Russian users.

在乌克兰的无人机袭击损坏了托管人工智能超级计算机的设施，并导致数百万俄罗斯用户的云服务中断后，俄罗斯科技公司正争先恐后地加固并将数据中心转移到地下。

Meanwhile, the Kremlin is requiring data center owners to reserve computing capacity for emergency state needs and has even authorized possible use of foreign data centers. These consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine come as the Russian military has bombarded Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles nearly night and day in recent months, along with specifically targeting Ukrainian data centers since late September.

与此同时，克里姆林宫要求数据中心所有者为国家紧急需求预留计算能力，甚至授权在必要时使用外国数据中心。这些俄罗斯对乌克兰战争带来的后果，正值俄罗斯军队近几个月来几乎昼夜不停地用无人机和导弹轰炸乌克兰城市，并自9月下旬以来专门针对乌克兰的数据中心进行打击之际。

But Ukraine has retaliated with its own drone strikes on military and infrastructure targets across Russia, degrading or knocking out data centers operated by Russian tech giant Yandex, the state-owned bank Sberbank, social media site VKontakte, and the Russian Ministry of Finance.

但乌克兰也以牙还牙，对俄罗斯境内的军事和基础设施目标发动了无人机袭击，导致俄罗斯科技巨头Yandex、国有银行俄罗斯联邦储蓄银行（Sberbank）、社交媒体网站VKontakte以及俄罗斯财政部运营的数据中心受损或瘫痪。

Now, state-owned telecommunications company Rostelcom has raised the possibility of moving some Russian data centers underground in talks with the nickel and palladium mining company Norilsk, according to Russian newspaper Vedomosti. The industry publication Data Center Dynamics also pointed to a recent proposal by a Russian regional governor to build data centers within open-pit coal mines while planting green public parks above as camouflage.

据俄罗斯《新闻报》（Vedomosti）报道，国有电信公司Rostelcom在与镍钯矿业公司诺里尔斯克（Norilsk）的会谈中，提出了将部分俄罗斯数据中心转移到地下的可能性。行业刊物《数据中心动态》（Data Center Dynamics）也指出，一位俄罗斯地区州长最近提议在露天煤矿内建造数据中心，并在上方种植绿色公园作为掩护。

On November 2, Putin also signed a decree ordering Russian data center operators to set aside 10 percent of available space and capacity in case the Russian government requires it, according to independent Russian news publication Meduza. That may indicate growing Kremlin concerns about the vulnerability of Russian cloud computing infrastructure during its war with Ukraine.

据俄罗斯独立新闻媒体Meduza报道，11月2日，普京签署了一项法令，要求俄罗斯数据中心运营商预留10%的可用空间和容量，以备俄罗斯政府之需。这可能表明克里姆林宫对俄罗斯云计算基础设施在俄乌战争期间的脆弱性日益担忧。

Putin’s decree also allows a special Russian government commission to authorize use of foreign data centers in consultation with Russia’s Federal Security Service. That marks a notable policy change because Putin and the Russian parliament previously enacted Russia’s “Sovereign Internet Law,” which has blocked Russian companies from using cloud computing infrastructure outside Russia’s borders.

普京的法令还允许俄罗斯的一个特别政府委员会在咨询俄罗斯联邦安全局后，授权使用外国数据中心。这标志着一项显著的政策转变，因为普京和俄罗斯议会此前曾颁布了俄罗斯的“主权互联网法”，该法禁止俄罗斯公司使用俄罗斯境外边界的云计算基础设施。

Russia’s push for a sovereign and increasingly closed Internet has resulted in a highly centralized system under a few Russian tech companies like Yandex. That hyper-centralized system has now proven vulnerable during wartime, as Ukrainian drone strikes on key Russian data centers created widespread disruptions for popular payment and digital banking apps, e-commerce platforms, video streaming services, and ride-hailing and food delivery apps, among others.

俄罗斯对主权且日益封闭的互联网的推动，导致了一个在Yandex等少数俄罗斯科技公司控制下的高度集中化系统。这种高度集中的系统在战时已被证明是脆弱的，因为乌克兰对俄罗斯关键数据中心的无人机袭击，导致了流行的支付和数字银行应用程序、电子商务平台、视频流媒体服务以及网约车和外卖应用程序等的大范围中断。

Yandex has also been forced to relocate all three of its main supercomputers after Ukrainian drone strikes targeted the AI data centers where they were originally housed, Meduza reported. By comparison, Ukraine’s decentralized digital services have proven much more resilient despite years of Russian drone and missile attacks, especially as the government has taken more steps to disperse crucial energy and telecommunications nodes and bury more supporting infrastructure underground.

据Meduza报道，在乌克兰无人机袭击了最初托管人工智能数据中心的地点后，Yandex也被迫迁移了其全部三台主要超级计算机。相比之下，尽管多年来遭受俄罗斯的无人机和导弹袭击，乌克兰去中心化的数字服务已被证明更具韧性，特别是政府已采取更多措施分散关键能源和电信节点，并将更多配套基础设施埋入地下。

A big boost came from US tech giants Amazon and Microsoft, which helped Ukraine migrate government resources and other crucial digital services to cloud regions elsewhere in Europe shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Ukrainian government has also used SpaceX’s Starlink satellite terminals—paid for by the United States and European countries such as Poland and Germany—as a backup communications system.

美国科技巨头亚马逊（Amazon）和微软（Microsoft）提供了巨大的支持，在俄罗斯于2022年2月发动全面入侵后不久，它们就帮助乌克兰将政府资源和其他关键数字服务迁移到了欧洲其他地区的云区域。乌克兰政府还使用了由美国以及波兰和德国等欧洲国家资助的SpaceX星链（Starlink）卫星终端作为备份通信系统。