Russia’s Push for AI Sovereignty Faces Setbacks 

Russia’s Push for AI Sovereignty Faces Setbacks 

Executive Summary:

• Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia in October damaged data centers operated by Yandex, VK, Sberbank, and Russia’s Federal Tax Service, disrupting digital services and prompting discussion of relocating infrastructure from the Moscow region to the Far East.
• Moscow is moving to formalize its artificial intelligence (AI) policy as concerns grow that Russian systems are falling behind U.S. and Chinese models. New AI legislation entered into force in September.
• Russian officials view domestic AI as a matter of national sovereignty, but shortages of computing infrastructure and skilled personnel, alongside growing use of foreign AI models, threaten Moscow’s efforts to develop a competitive domestic sector.

Ukrainian drone strikes on October 8 struck one of the large data centers belonging to Yandex, Russia’s largest tech company, leading to massive interruptions in the company’s services around the country. The strikes pushed the company’s cloud services into emergency mode, and clients had to move their data to other cloud systems (Habr, October 12). Other services within the Yandex digital ecosystem required weeks to recover (T-J, October 26). VK Company Limited—another major tech company which controls the leading Russian-language social media sites VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, the national messaging system Max, and Mail.ru, Russia’s leading e-mail service—also recently faced damage to its data centers, as did Sberbank, Russia’s largest financial institution (CNews, October 18). These attacks underscore just one of the many difficulties facing the Kremlin as it continues to push for complete digital sovereignty.

These October attacks fit into a broader pattern of Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian data centers, including those belonging to federal organizations, such as the National Tax Service in Nizhnyi Novgorod (Nastoyashee Vremya, October 23). Ozon, an e-commerce company that is considered Russia’s answer to Amazon, has faced continued drone attacks targeting their warehouses since August (Omskinform, October 28). 

The attacks have had serious consequences for Russia’s attempts to develop a secure and sovereign tech sector. The Russian technology industry is calling for additional security, and some are discussing potentially relocating data centers to the Far East, as 75 percent of commercial data centers are currently located in Moscow oblast (Techora, October 27). Other options discussed in the technology press include moving data centers to Kazakhstan. Yandex has not faced comprehensive Western sanctions, enabling it to potentially move infrastructure abroad (Habr, October 12).

The physical attacks on Russia’s technology sector come as the Kremlin becomes more concerned about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) in the country. The Russian Duma formed a committee to address AI issues, headed by Aleksandr Sidyakin, deputy secretary general of the ruling United Russia party and one of the initiators of Russia’s “foreign agents” law, which nominally aimed to reduce foreign influence in the country and suppressed independent media, non-governmental organizations, and non-systemic political opposition (Meduza, September 24). Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia’s sovereignty will depend on the country’s ability to develop its own domestic AI (RBC, April 10). The rapid development of AI use in Russia’s war against Ukraine has completely altered the battlefield, reducing the applicability of lessons from previous wars, according to Russian Deputy Defense Minister General Yunus-Bek Evkurov in an August interview (RBC, August 10).

The first legislation specifying Kremlin policies for the development of domestic models entered into effect in September, though some provisions will not take effect until March 2027. “Sovereign” AI models must use only domestic technologies under the law, while “national” models can use foreign components and open-source solutions (RBC, August 31). “Sovereign” models, according to Sidyakin, must “conform to Russian spiritual and moral values” (RIA Novosti, October 27).

Moscow is concerned that Russian AI is falling behind models from the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Sberbank President German Gref estimated that Russian AI was a half-year behind Beijing’s systems and expressed fears that this lag will continue (RBC, September 24). This announcement followed news that PRC models were the second and third most popular models among Russian clients using domestic cloud platforms, with the use of PRC AI growing elevenfold year-on-year (Kommersant, August 13). Surveys published in the summer found that respondents from 79 percent of 100 major Russian companies reported too few AI specialists and 91 percent lacked sufficient server infrastructure (ITZine, July 29). 

These concerns about AI development are compounded by evidence of brain drain. Arkadii Volozh, the original founder of Yandex, immigrated to the Netherlands in 2024 after criticizing Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, taking 1,000 engineers with him, along with plans to develop a company specializing in infrastructure for AI systems. His assets were then sold to Russian investors for $5.4 billion (IncRussia, July 16). The Kremlin is subsidizing the development of domestic AI by offering tax breaks to small and medium enterprises that adopt domestic solutions, but the country will need 89,000 AI specialists by 2030, according to estimates presented at a tech conference by former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitrii Gorgenko (Vedomosti, September 21; Ekspert, October 24).

The new AI legislation is part of a broader shift toward Russian digital sovereignty. This push includes a “sovereign” internet and national network defense system (see EDM, May 20). Russia faces serious challenges, including developing national AI systems that can compete with U.S. and PRC versions while protecting its technology infrastructure from Ukrainian strikes. Further attacks leading to extended online interruptions would likely undermine support for the war effort and disrupt Russia’s digital economy. A major relocation of technology infrastructure to the Far East would likely require heavy state support and the development of an ecosystem to support the data centers, both serious undertakings for an economy that is facing stagnation (see EDM, November 2).