Russia has widened its attacks on Ukraine to include data centres and internet infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, in what Ukrainian officials describe as a deliberate strategy to disrupt the daily lives of ordinary citizens. On Friday, a Russian drone struck the Inkom business centre in Kyiv, killing four people and damaging facilities operated by Datagroup, one of Ukraine's major internet and data service providers. A separate overnight drone barrage on the capital killed a 14-year-old Israeli-Ukrainian boy when an aircraft struck a 16-storey apartment block in Kyiv's Pecherskyi district, and left at least 20 people injured across the city. Russia's defence ministry confirmed it had targeted the Datagroup site, claiming it was being used by Ukrainian military intelligence — a characterisation Ukrainian officials flatly rejected.

The strikes have had measurable effects on civilian life. Around 100,000 households in Kyiv and the surrounding region experienced internet outages earlier in the week, and in Lutsk, a city in north-western Ukraine, electronic information boards at public transport stops went dark following damage to Kyiv-based data infrastructure. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha warned that attacks on data centres endangered the rapid alert systems that warn civilians of incoming missile and drone threats.