Russia proposes building data centers in coal pits after drone strikes

The proposal was unveiled by Ilya Seredyuk, governor of the coal-rich Kemerovo Oblast (Kuzbass) in southwestern Siberia. Seredyuk claimed that submerging data processing centers inside exhausted strip mines will not only shield sensitive digital infrastructure from airborne attack, but also relieve regional mining enterprises of costly land reclamation mandates.

"Data centers could be established inside depleted open-pit mines and quarries of our coal enterprises, which miners are currently required to reclaim, backfill, and landscape," Seredyuk stated.

"Roughly speaking, it is a massive hole 300 meters deep. If you install all the infrastructure of a data center, computing cluster, or cryptocurrency mining center down there, the capital expenditure required to establish these facilities would be minimal. There would be no need to spend funds on surface reclamation; that money should instead be redirected toward building a new economy," the governor argued.

According to the Russian official, engineers could construct monolithic underground complexes descending "10, 12, or 16 floors down into the earth rather than upward." Seredyuk claimed that standing pit water and subterranean aquifers could serve as natural chillers, slashing both capital expenditure and operational costs for heavy server cooling systems.

Highlighting what he considered the primary operational advantage, Seredyuk emphasized the sites' natural resistance to deep aerial bombardment: "It provides a very high level of protection from external impacts."

"You put a roof over it, lay down greenery, build a public park on top — and the data center is completely enclosed and hidden," Seredyuk added.

Targeted Strikes on Russian Digital Infrastructure

The Yandex server cluster strikes: Throughout Oct. 2026, the Ukrainian Defense Forces launched a coordinated series of long-range strikes against data centers belonging to Russian technology giant Yandex. The strikes damaged three of the conglomerate's six primary data hubs (Sasovo in Ryazan Oblast, Kaluga, and Vladimir) and disabled three AI-training supercomputers, including the premier $40 million Chervonenkis unit. Repairs are projected to take up to six months, with Russian botnet traffic plunging to near zero in the aftermath.

The Balakovo Sberbank strike: On Oct. 14, Ukrainian strike drones penetrated Saratov Oblast and struck the mega data center belonging to Sberbank, Russia's largest financial institution, in the city of Balakovo. The facility — the largest operational server farm in Russia  — suffered localized blazes alongside hits on adjacent electrical distribution substations.