President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that following Ukrainian responses targeting the data centers of the Russian company Yandex, there are fewer bots, provocations, and hostility on social media platforms.
Zelenskyy Says Yandex Strikes Crippled Pro-Kremlin Bots But Tech Experts Question Evidence
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine's recent attacks on Russian tech giant Yandex’s data centers have resulted in fewer Internet bots promoting pro-Kremlin hate, a claim that has been disputed by many technology researchers.
Is Zelensky right to say data centre strikes have taken down Russian bots?
Experts say there is no evidence that Russian trolls have been affected by Ukraine’s Yandex attacks.
Did Ukrainian strikes on Russian datacentres reduce online disinformation?
While some viral online graphs suggest less bot activity, Zelenskyy’s claims of improved social media discourse do not entirely pass muster
Did “Russian bot traffic” really disappear after Ukrainian strikes on Yandex servers?
Despite multiple Ukrainian strikes hitting Yandex servers in Russia, a thread by antibot4navalny, which has long tracked state-sponsored social media campaigns and troll farms, explains that the Cloudflare “Bot Traffic” chart many people have cited is really about automated web crawlers operated by Yandex accessing the web. It’s not connected to “bots” posting on social media, and Russian bot/crawler traffic overall continues to be about the same as normal. Still, are you noticing any difference in the posts and comments you’ve seen online? [Media: https://bsky.app/profile/antibot4navalny.bsky.social/post/3mxmv7t6nxc27]
Russia's Yandex bot traffic nearly eliminated overnight after Ukraine drone strikes cripple multiple of 'Russia's Google' data centers — Ukraine intensifies bombing of Yandex data centers in response to Moscow’s strikes on Kyiv data centers
The world is getting a break from Russian bots thanks to Kyiv.
Ukrainian drones hit three of Russian tech giant Yandex’s data centers in four days. Ukraine’s president says the bots thinned out too
Lithuania’s prime minister wants more such strikes to protect elections. Researchers say the bot data shows Yandex’s web crawlers, not trolls.
Rapid-response fact-check: "Yandex Strikes Caused Russian Bot Activity To Drop By 50 Percent" Is False | Joohn Choe
This is going on viral on Facebook today and it's unfortunately wrong. Ukrainian drone strikes on Yandex data centers in Russia did not cut
Ukraine’s Strikes on Yandex Data Centers, Explained
A wave of attacks against the Russian internet giant Yandex has sent shockwaves across the country in recent days and caused major disruptions to daily life.
No, Ukraine's strikes on Yandex data centers didn't cripple Russian influence ops
Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian data centers sparked viral claims about a sudden drop in Russian influence operations on social media — even as experts see no evidence to support this. Kyiv struck data centers run by Yandex — Russia's "answer to Google" — in three different regions between Oct. 9 and 11, a response to Russian strikes against similar facilities in Ukraine. Yandex acknowledged the attacks, noting that its data center in Vladimir Oblast had to be shut down due to damage a
Ukraine knocked out key Yandex data centers. The fallout is being felt across Russia. — Meduza
Ukraine has struck three of the six data centers belonging to Yandex, a Russian technology company, in Sasovo (Ryazan region), Kaluga, and Vladimir. Kyiv called the strikes a response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centers, which Russian forces have been striking lately. The infrastructure of the company’s “iron heart,” as Yandex calls its data centers, has been damaged. Operations at two of them — in Sasovo and Vladimir — have been halted. At the data center in Kaluga, “several modules have been completely knocked out.” Outages have plagued the Russian internet since the strikes began: not only Yandex’s services but also the websites of other companies and even media outlets have been operating with restrictions. Users abroad have also complained about problems with Yandex’s apps. As of October 12, the company had not managed to restore their operation. Here’s a look at the consequences of the Ukrainian strikes that Yandex and its users have faced.
Russia called its strikes on Ukrainian data centers a ‘forced digital detox.’ Zelensky says Kyiv has answered by hitting a data center belonging to Russian tech giant Yandex. — Meduza
Ukraine is responding in kind to Russian strikes, including attacks on data centers, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. He was commenting on a Ukrainian strike on a Yandex data center in Russia’s Ryazan region, RBC-Ukraine reported.
The Center examined how strikes on Yandex affected the spread of russian propaganda | Центр протидії дезінформації
The Center examined changes in global internet traffic following Ukrainian strikes on data centers belonging to Yandex, a sanctioned russian IT giant, in sa ...
By popular demand: A follow-up thread on Russian bots, Yandex, Cloudflare, MAGA, AfD and "breathing easier" on social media. 1️⃣ We see no "dramatic drop" in traffic of Kremlin-aligned human trolls-for-hire targeting Russian domestic users (which we have been tracking for years).
To those implying that Kremlin-controlled social media bot/troll farms became silent after Ukraine hit a Yandex data center, posting this CloudFare chart ( radar.cloudflare.com/bots/as13238 ): Hate to disappoint you all ⤵️
Y’all, I hate to rain on the dead bot parade, but the Yandex data center destruction doesn’t seem to have significantly impacted social media bots. I made temporal graphs of X posts about AfD around the time of the attack and there’s no sign of a sudden dip or residual impact on that conversation.
