Major drop in Russian bot traffic. Successful Ukrainian strike

Over the night from Saturday to Sunday (10 to 11 October this year), the third Ukrainian attack on the data centres of the Russian internet giant Yandex in four days took place. Drones struck a facility located in the Vladimir Oblast. As a result, its operations have been suspended.

It should be recalled that similar situations had previously occurred at the company’s facilities in the Ryazan and Kaluga Oblasts. Following the Ukrainian drone attack, there has been a significant drop in Russian bot traffic online, as shown by Cloudflare data.

Comments immediately appeared featuring questions such as: “Does this mean there will be less pro-Russian propaganda on social media?”

Russian propaganda and disinformation will not disappear

The European analytical collective Res Futura Data House indicates – based on its daily analytics – that there is no sign that the activity of pro-Russian accounts in Poland has decreased.

As Niebezpiecznik explains, the drop in traffic concerns bots designed for spam.

“It is possible that some accounts used for influence operations on social media were hosted in Yandex DCs, but we must disappoint you: these bombings will have little, if any, impact on Russian ‘hybrid activities’,” the service emphasises.