Yandex outage, 11–12 October 2026: drone strikes on three data centres, what's down in Russia and whether a VPN helps
Three Yandex data centres were hit by drones in four days and the Vladimir site was shut down completely on 11 October. Which Yandex services and third-party Russian sites went down, what's back, when it will be fixed, and when a VPN actually helps.
From the morning of 11 October 2026 "Yandex not working" became the top search in Russia: Yandex Go, Pay, Music, Alice and Maps were down, along with dozens of other sites hosted in Yandex Cloud. Here's what happened, what's back, and an honest answer to the question people ask most: will a VPN help?
Quick fix. If a specific Russian site is down, no VPN will bring it back. But if "the whole internet" stopped working for you at once and messengers and foreign services are crawling, Surok sends your traffic along its own route around Russian infrastructure: DNS, YouTube, Telegram and foreign sites keep working. The first three days are free.
What happened
In four days drones hit three Yandex data centres:
- 8 October, Sasovo (Ryazan region). A fire took out part of the infrastructure.
- 9 October, Kaluga. Part of the infrastructure damaged.
- 11 October, Vladimir. The data centre was shut down completely. Two substations were damaged and about five thousand residents lost power.
At 04:00 Moscow time Yandex Cloud reported power problems in availability zone ru-central1-a; by 06:00 it called the platform "unstable" and advised customers to run disaster-recovery plans elsewhere. No staff were hurt. A day earlier, on 10 October, Yandex had added a force-majeure clause to its user agreement that explicitly includes drone attacks.
What went down
Yandex services, fully or partly: Yandex Go and Taxi, Yandex Pro (the driver and courier app), Pay, Eda and Lavka, Music, Kinopoisk, Alice and smart home, Maps (location and traffic), 360, Metrica, Webmaster, Games, Telemost, the Yandex Cloud platform itself and customer support.
Third-party sites and apps hosted in Yandex Cloud. Pulkovo airport, Dom.ru, Dodo Pizza, Vkusno i Tochka, Lamoda, Auto.ru, Cian, Aviasales, Magnit, Pyaterochka, Apteka.ru, Delimobil, Citydrive, Urent, Lenta, M.Video, DDX Fitness, Flowwow. Some sites went dark entirely; others lost sign-in and registration because their captcha, auth or database lived in Yandex.
Neighbouring countries. Yandex Qazaqstan, Yandex Eda in Kyrgyzstan, temporarily Belarusbank and M-Banking, and users in Armenia and Serbia.
What's back as of 12 October
On the afternoon of 11 October Yandex reported partial recovery: Search, Go, Alice, Mail and Maps work with limits, taxi and food delivery are available in the app, Lavka may have issues. Pulkovo's site returned at 04:00 on 12 October, M.Video works with delays, Cian is restoring data from backups more slowly than planned. Yandex Pay is still not back to normal: users can't access funds, and the company says account records are stored in several copies on different sites. Yandex gives no date for full recovery and is prioritising the most-used services.
Does a VPN help?
Let's be honest. A VPN changes the route of your traffic; it doesn't repair someone else's servers.
It won't help if the site or app keeps its servers, database or sign-in in the damaged cloud. Dodo Pizza, Cian or Yandex Pay won't open via Germany or the US: there is nothing to open.
It helps when the problem is on the route, not on the server:
- DNS. Many Russian ISPs and routers use Yandex DNS 77.88.8.8. When it fails, nothing opens even though the sites are alive. Surok resolves names inside the tunnel over encrypted DNS, so that failure doesn't touch you.
- Foreign services. YouTube, Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram and foreign sites don't depend on Russian data centres at all. Through the tunnel they work as long as you have any connectivity.
- General network instability. On mass-outage days carriers reroute traffic and ordinary connections get slower. The tunnel to our Russian entry node and on to Europe lives on its own path.
Surok's VPN servers are not in Yandex Cloud: the Russian entry points sit with independent providers, the exits are in Germany, Poland, Estonia, Spain, Switzerland, the US and Canada. Russian sites keep opening directly while Surok is on, so you lose nothing.
What to do right now
- Check whether it's everyone. Sboi.rf and Downdetector show whether a service is down for all or just for you.
- Money in Yandex Pay. Don't send repeat transfers "just in case": the company says balances are intact and duplicates will have to be reversed later.
- Taxi and delivery. If the app doesn't respond, try again in half an hour: services come back in waves.
- Your own business in Yandex Cloud. Yandex itself recommends recovering elsewhere rather than waiting: in the zones hit on 8 and 9 October recovery took days.
- The internet in general. If "everything" died together with Yandex, turn on Surok and open the IP check: if the page loads, your network is fine and only specific services are down.
FAQ
Is this a Roskomnadzor block? No. It's physical damage to data centres; the regulator has nothing to do with it.
Why did sites unrelated to Yandex go down? Because they rent servers, databases, captcha or Yandex ID sign-in from Yandex. To the user it looks like the shop or the airport itself failed.
When will it be fixed? No date. The Vladimir centre is fully stopped and parts of Sasovo and Kaluga are out, so some features may take weeks.
Should I change DNS? If sites don't open by name but do open by IP, set 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8 on your router or phone, or use a VPN with DNS inside the tunnel.
In short
Three Yandex data centres were damaged by drones on 8, 9 and 11 October; Vladimir is fully stopped. Yandex services and dozens of sites in its cloud went down; by 12 October most are back with limits, Pay is not. A VPN won't revive someone else's server, but it keeps everything else working: DNS, messengers and foreign sites. Surok gives three days free.