Russia struck the headquarters of Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile operator, on Sunday as attacks increasingly targeted the country’s telecommunications and data infrastructure.
Kyivstar told Interfax Ukraine that its headquarters in Kyiv had been hit but said there were no casualties at the facility.
Russia’s Defense Ministry separately said it struck a data center belonging to Vodafone Ukraine, the country’s second-largest mobile network operator. Vodafone Ukraine had not responded to Reuters’ request for comment when the report was published.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a Kyiv data center was struck twice Sunday morning, wounding two children and an adult.
The attacks are economically significant because Ukraine’s digital infrastructure supports telecommunications, businesses, government services and civilian warning systems.
Ukraine’s Digital Ministry said attacks on internet-provider data centers during the past week caused service outages affecting approximately 100,000 households in Kyiv and the surrounding region.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has accused Russia of deliberately targeting major data centers to disrupt information flows.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its Sunday strikes targeted military-linked communications, logistics and transport infrastructure. Reuters said it could not independently verify Moscow’s claims concerning the targets.
That distinction is material: confirmed damage to Kyivstar’s headquarters and reported infrastructure disruption can be separated from competing claims by the combatants about the intended military purpose of individual targets.
The developing risk is whether continued attacks materially degrade Ukraine’s telecommunications capacity.
Markets and infrastructure operators will also watch whether the campaign expands to additional networks, cloud infrastructure or other critical digital assets.
