Verstehen
Experts find no evidence Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centres reduced bot networks
Überblick
Claims that Ukrainian strikes on Russian Yandex data centres have significantly reduced Kremlin-linked bot networks and online influence operations are unsupported by evidence. According to BBC Verify and tech experts, viral social media posts misinterpreting Cloudflare data drove the claims. While the attacks have disrupted Yandex's infrastructure and cloud services, researchers tracking Russian disinformation networks confirmed that known bot clusters and accounts remain active on social media.
Wichtige Punkte
- Ukrainian forces struck three of Yandex's five data centres in response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian internet hubs.
- Viral social media claims suggested the strikes reduced Russian influence operations and social media bot activity.
- Experts and tech firm Cloudflare clarified that a drop in automated internet requests reflected web-crawling activity rather than social media bot behavior.
- Researchers from dTeam confirmed that known Russian-linked bot clusters and influence operations, such as Storm-1516 and Matryoshka, remained active on social media.
- Yandex stated it blocks accounts using its cloud services for manipulation, and independent analysts noted the company likely switched off its web-crawling bots to conserve degraded computing resources.
- Internet monitoring groups confirmed the strikes caused significant infrastructure-level disruptions affecting global users and services relying on Yandex.