Drone strikes on Yandex data centers near Moscow disrupted internet services across Central Asia, the company confirmed. The outages show how deeply the region depends on digital infrastructure located outside its borders.

Yandex, often called "Russia's Google," runs search, maps, email, and ride-hailing apps used daily in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and nearby countries. When drones hit its data centers near Moscow, users far from the war zone lost access to these services. The incident highlights a wider problem. Much of Central Asia's internet traffic and cloud storage passes through or sits in Russia. A single strike can therefore knock services offline across multiple countries at once. Governments in the region have discussed building local data centers and rerouting traffic. So far, progress has been limited. Analysts say the strikes may push these plans forward. For now, the event serves as a clear warning: physical attacks on one country's infrastructure can quickly become a regional digital crisis.