A Moscow court has ordered Russian internet giant Yandex to hide maps and images of oil refineries from search results after a series of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia's fuel infrastructure.
Points of attention
- Ukrainian drones target Russian oil refineries, posing a serious threat to the fuel infrastructure of the aggressor country.
- A Moscow court orders Yandex to remove maps and images of oil refineries from search results to safeguard these vulnerable facilities.
- Russian regulators file a lawsuit against Yandex, requiring the tech company to hide detailed images of oil refineries targeted by drone strikes.
- Ukrainian Defense Forces escalate attacks on Russian energy facilities, using drones and other means to disrupt fuel production and distribution.
- The conflict in Ukraine raises concerns about the escalation of violence as both sides target critical infrastructure, affecting millions in the region.
Yandex will hide maps of Russian refineries after Ukrainian attacks
Yandex will destroy images of oil refineries that allegedly made them “extremely vulnerable” to Ukrainian kamikaze drones
According to the Russian news agency TASS, Yandex was ordered to clean up satellite and cartographic images of an oil refinery that was targeted by drone strikes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The requirement came after Russian regulators filed a lawsuit that found that detailed images of the country's oil refineries were readily available from Yandex on a service similar to Google Maps.
The technology company must begin "removing or retouching images of the facility's components, including workshops, compressor stations, tanks, and other elements, from the Yandex Maps platform," the resolution states.
The court said that Yandex's technology "makes the facility extremely vulnerable to enemy weapons."
The blocking is the first time the Russian government has ordered Yandex to remove information from public maps to support its military operations, TASS reported. Yandex declined to comment.
The lawsuit says the facility has been attacked by Ukraine four times, though it does not name the plant. It says the refinery operates “continuously to support the Russian army and navy” and that public access to the images “undermines national defense capabilities.”
The Telegraph has been able to identify several major oil and gas plants in Russia that have reportedly been targeted by Ukrainian forces using Yandex's mapping tools. Satellite imagery provides detailed views of several key sites, as well as panoramic drone shots and street views.
Drone war: Ukraine responds to Russian attacks
Russia has launched a wave of air and drone strikes on Kyiv's power grid since invading Ukraine nearly three years ago. Russian forces have destroyed about half of Ukraine's domestic energy infrastructure and caused complete power outages since the war began.
Last year, Ukrainian forces began escalating their own attacks on the Kremlin's oil and gas facilities, with drones targeting plants deep inside Russia, some hundreds of miles from the border.
The Ukrainian Defense Forces have also bombed ammunition factories using kamikaze drones, fired rockets, and sabotaged Russian railways carrying fuel.
On December 22, dozens of Ukrainian drones attacked an oil depot in Russia's Oryol region, the second major strike on the facility this month. While Russia claimed to have shot down 20 drones, footage on social media showed the Steel Horse storage facility on fire.
Last year, Ukraine damaged factories in Tatarstan, which is located more than 750 miles from the border, and St. Petersburg.
Some of Ukraine's allies have expressed concern about Kyiv's decision to strike Russian infrastructure far from its own territory, fearing further escalation of a conflict that has already left 1 million soldiers killed or wounded.
Yandex under Western sanctions
Yandex was founded as a search engine in 1997, dominating the Internet search market in Eastern Europe and competing with Google. The tech company sometimes argued against the Kremlin's censorship demands, but the Russian state later took a "golden share" in the business.
After listing in the US over a decade ago, its value reached over $30bn (£24bn) in 2021.
However, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has seen the tech company hit with crippling sanctions from Western governments, and the Kremlin has sharply increased censorship of its search engine and news products.
After being blacklisted, Yandex's global business was split up, and last year it sold its Russian search division to local investors at a discounted price.
