Carriers & OperatorsKyivstarVodafone UkraineUkraineData Centres

Russian strike hits Kyivstar HQ as attacks target Ukrainian telecoms

A Russian strike damaged Kyivstar's Kyiv headquarters; data centres of Vodafone Ukraine, UTELS and others were hit, disrupting service to around 100,000 households.

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Russia strikes Kyivstar headquarters amid attacks on Ukrainian telecoms infrastructureCarriers & Operators
Russia strikes Kyivstar headquarters amid attacks on Ukrainian telecoms infrastructureAI-generated

Why it matters

  • Kyivstar confirmed its Kyiv headquarters was damaged in a Russian strike on Sunday; no employees were injured and the building had been hit earlier this month.
  • Russia's defence ministry said it struck a Vodafone Ukraine data centre; Ukraine's digital ministry said earlier attacks disrupted services to around 100,000 households in Kyiv and the surrounding region.
  • Data centres operated by UTELS, Pavutyna and Datagroup were damaged in the past week, with some providers relying on backup sites to maintain services.

The story

A Russian strike on Sunday damaged the Kyiv headquarters of Kyivstar, Ukraine's largest mobile operator, as Moscow widened its campaign against the country's data centres and communications infrastructure.

Kyivstar confirmed to Interfax-Ukraine that its head office in the capital was damaged in the attack but said no employees were injured. The same building had already suffered damage in strikes earlier this month.

Russia's defence ministry said it had also struck a data centre belonging to Vodafone Ukraine, although the operator had not confirmed the attack to Reuters. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia hit a data centre in Kyiv twice on Sunday morning, injuring two children and one adult.

Wider pattern of strikes

The latest attacks form part of a sustained series of strikes on data centres and other infrastructure used by Ukrainian internet providers over the past week. Facilities operated by providers including UTELS, Pavutyna and Datagroup have been damaged, and some operators are now running services from backup sites to stay online.

Ukraine's digital ministry said earlier attacks on data centres had disrupted services to around 100,000 households in Kyiv and the surrounding region, according to Reuters.

The strikes expose the vulnerability of Ukraine's communications infrastructure, which has stayed operational throughout the war through network redundancy, backup facilities and rapid restoration work by engineering teams.

Information war dimension

Ukraine's foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said Russia was deliberately targeting major Ukrainian data centres in an effort to disrupt the flow of information. He also stressed that rapid alerts about missile and drone threats save lives — a function that depends directly on the resilience of telecoms networks and data infrastructure.

For Ukrainian operators, the immediate priority is maintaining continuity of service. The reliance on backup sites after the past week's strikes suggests operators are absorbing damage rather than losing connectivity outright, but repeated hits on the same facilities — as seen with the Kyivstar headquarters — raise questions about how long redundancy alone can sustain operations if the targeting continues.

Also reported

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Elena Vasquez

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Market editor covering consumer brands and retail at Telecom Gazette.

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