Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergiy Koretskyi said on October 23, 2026, that Russia had attacked ten data centers in Kyiv during September. In remarks reported by Reuters, he argued that strikes against digital infrastructure are becoming as systematic as attacks on the electricity grid. The statement supplies a specific, attributable figure. It does not, by itself, constitute an independent facility-by-facility damage assessment.

This matters far beyond server rooms. Physical attacks on data centers can interrupt internet connectivity, business software, public services and backup systems, especially when providers are already contending with power cuts and repeated air raids.

What Ukraine’s prime minister reported

Reuters reported on Friday, October 23, that Koretskyi attributed strikes on ten data centers in the capital during September 2026 to Russian forces and called on government bodies to strengthen their cybersecurity teams without delay. He also warned of growing cyberattacks using artificial intelligence tools.

These are related but distinct threats. A physical strike on data-center infrastructure and a cyber intrusion into software and networks are not the same event, even when an adversary might pursue both. Evidence of one does not automatically establish the other. Nor does the prime minister’s statement show that all ten facilities were completely destroyed.

The number should therefore be presented carefully: it is the Ukrainian prime minister’s reported count, not ten separately verified buildings that this newsroom has inspected or documented.

The September timeline behind the announcement

Poland’s Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) reported on September 29 that attacks on Kyiv’s digital infrastructure had intensified during the month. Its analysis described a September 27 strike that damaged ten data centers in the capital and one in Dnipro, including facilities associated with major telecommunications providers.

A separate OSW analysis dated October 19 again discussed attacks against Ukrainian data centers and set them alongside a parallel campaign of Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian technology infrastructure. OSW documented effects on facilities operated by Russian technology companies, but those are separate attacks in a different country and must not be conflated with the Kyiv count.

Two reports mentioning roughly ten affected facilities cannot simply be added together to produce twenty distinct sites. They may describe overlapping incidents during September. A comprehensive assessment would require an identifiable list of operators and locations, together with dated technical reports on the damage and service disruptions.

Why data centers are an increasingly sensitive target

Data centers underpin email, website hosting, electronic payments, enterprise applications, digital archives and government services. They can be disabled without hackers ever entering the network: a loss of electricity, cooling, fiber connectivity or hardware can interrupt operations just as effectively as a software attack.

Operators therefore invest in backups, redundant power and geographically separated systems. Those measures reduce exposure but cannot guarantee uninterrupted service when critical infrastructure comes under repeated attack.

The risk is international as well. A service hosted in a conflict zone may affect users thousands of miles away. But that possibility does not establish that all Ukrainian online services were disrupted, nor can every reported outage be attributed to any one data center without further evidence.

What remains unverified

The prime minister’s statement, Reuters’ reporting and OSW’s independent regional analyses are enough to support a carefully attributed article about a pattern of attacks on digital infrastructure and the ten-facility figure reported by Kyiv.

They do not supply a public, verified inventory of all ten sites, total financial losses, the full list of customers affected or independent engineering reports establishing the extent of destruction at each location. Those details should remain open questions until operators, authorities or reliable investigators release stronger evidence.

Future updates must distinguish newly reported strikes from earlier September incidents and should preserve the date and source of every revised figure.

The wider question is urgent and practical: when computing infrastructure itself becomes a recurring wartime target, how much redundancy do governments and businesses need to keep essential information flowing?

Suggested photograph: a server rack photographed in 2006. Archive image, not a facility targeted in Kyiv.

Sources: Reuters, October 23, 2026; OSW, September 29, 2026; OSW, October 19, 2026.