Putin Orders Data Centres to Reserve 10% of Capacity for the State After Drone Strikes

The decree was signed on Monday, November 2, according to The Moscow Times, which said the reserved capacity is meant to help keep Russia's IT infrastructure running. DatacenterDynamics, citing the same order, reported that Russian data centre firms must hold capacity in reserve for government departments.

How the Reserve Works

A new government commission will be able to order the release of the reserved capacity, and operators will have 24 hours to provide access once it does, according to The Moscow Times and German tech publication heise, which cited Reuters. The Digital Development Ministry has been told to carry out an inventory of available capacity and floor space at private data centres across the country.

The reports do not say which government services would use the capacity, and heise noted that this remains unclear. Neither The Moscow Times nor heise gave the full text of the decree, details of who sits on the commission or penalties for operators that do not comply.

Foreign Capacity Allowed With Approval

The second part of the decree loosens Russia's usual insistence on keeping data at home. Companies may now temporarily use computing capacity outside the country under certain circumstances, a provision first reported by Bloomberg. The Moscow Times said this requires approval from the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service. Heise reported that approval is needed from both the government subcommission and the FSB.

The reports do not say which countries Russian companies might turn to.

The Strikes Behind the Decree

In October, Ukrainian drones struck data centres hosting servers for Yandex, Russia's largest provider of search, AI and cloud services, causing significant connectivity problems with several services, heise reported. The Moscow Times said facilities operated by both Yandex and Sberbank were hit.

Heise, citing the independent outlet Meduza, said Yandex had since moved all three of its supercomputers to new locations. The machines were not damaged and are still intended to train AI language models. Heise said that while Ukrainian attacks on IT infrastructure had become less frequent recently, the new measures suggest the fallout has been more severe and longer-lasting than expected.

Why It Matters

The decree marks a shift in how a government treats commercial computing capacity. By claiming a fixed share of private data centre capacity, Moscow is treating compute as infrastructure that the state can call on in an emergency, in the same way it might treat power or fuel. The strikes on Yandex also show that data centres, including those used to train AI models, are now treated as targets in modern conflict.

For data centre operators and investors elsewhere, including in the Gulf, where governments are building large AI campuses, the episode raises practical questions about physical security, backup capacity in other countries and how much control states will expect over privately built compute.