Russian strikes disrupt internet service for 100,000 Kyiv-area households

Russian strikes hit data centers and internet providers in Kyiv, disrupting service to about 100,000 households in the capital and surrounding region, Ukraine’s Digital Transformation Ministry said.

The outages followed a drone attack on Sept. 23 and continued into Sept. 24 as technicians assessed damage and worked to restore stable connections. Several companies reported direct hits or damage to key infrastructure.

UTELS said a Kyiv data center containing its core equipment was damaged and left without power, while Pavutyna reported that a strike on one of its data centers caused customer outages. Crazy Network said damage to a central internet traffic exchange disrupted internet and telephone service in Kyiv as well as parts of Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi regions.

Kyiv provider Etherlink said its main network node was damaged, forcing it to move the core of its network. Hosting company MiroHost said the Ukrainian data center housing its infrastructure was destroyed, although founder Oleksandr Olshansky said 90% to 95% of customers used infrastructure outside Ukraine and were unaffected. CityHost also reported that equipment stored at a Kyiv data center had been destroyed.

Anatolii Frolenkov of the 1-IX internet exchange told the Kyiv Independent that attacks on communications networks were not new, but that strikes on data centers and communications nodes had intensified since September.