Did Ukraine’s strikes on data centers really silence Russian bots?

Russia's army of bots is apparently offline.

At least, that's according to chatter on social media and even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Over the past week, Ukrainian drones struck three data centers belonging to Yandex, the tech giant often called " Russia’s Google ." The first strike happened on Oct.

8, followed by a second attack on Oct.

9.

On Sunday, Oct.

11, a third strike damaged a Yandex data center in the Vladimir region, east of Moscow.

The company said operations at that facility were completely suspended and some of its services were unavailable, according to the BBC .

SEE ALSO: California's new AI law: Ban on bots used to fire employees The attacks disrupted Yandex services, from its AI chatbot to its smart home devices.

Per the BBC, the military strikes were meant to target "places that provide revenue streams for Moscow's war machine." Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday, Zelenskyy said "everyone noticed" a drop in Russian bot activity on social media after the strikes.

On X, Reddit, and elsewhere, users in several Western countries reported seeing less right-wing activity in their feeds, from pro-GOP accounts in the U.S. to supporters of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Czech member of the European Parliament Tomáš Zdechovský also pointed to claims that online support for the AfD had dropped after the strikes.

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