Russia struck the headquarters of Kyivstar in Kyiv on September 27, according to the company and Ukrainian media reports cited by Reuters. Kyivstar said its head office had been hit and that there were no casualties. Russia’s Defense Ministry separately said its forces had struck a data center belonging to Vodafone Ukraine, the country’s second-largest mobile operator.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a data center in Kyiv was hit twice and that two children and an adult were wounded. Vodafone Ukraine had not publicly responded to the Russian military’s claim at the time of the Reuters report, making the details of that part of the incident preliminary.
The attacks follow a broader pattern of strikes against Ukrainian communications and digital infrastructure. Ukraine’s digital ministry has said attacks on data centers operated by internet providers caused outages affecting roughly 100,000 households in Kyiv and surrounding areas during the preceding week.
The significance extends beyond telecommunications. Mobile networks and data centers support emergency alerts, banking, logistics, hospitals, public administration and military coordination. Damage to a major operator can therefore create indirect economic disruption even when consumer service is restored quickly.
For Ukraine, the incidents reinforce the need for distributed networks, backup power, satellite connectivity and geographically separated data facilities. For European governments and network operators, they illustrate the extent to which telecom infrastructure has become part of the strategic security environment rather than solely a commercial utility.
The reports do not establish the full operational impact of the strike or whether Kyivstar’s core services were materially interrupted nationwide. Further information from the company, Ukrainian authorities and independent technical monitors will be needed to assess the damage and the resilience of affected systems.
Sources: - https://www.internazionale.it/ultime-notizie-reuters/2026/09/27/russia-hits-ukraine-s-largest-mobile-provider-strikes-data-centres - https://www.reuters.com/