FSB General’s Son Leads Firm Supplying Mobile Data Centers as Ukraine Targets Russian Servers
Russian companies are buying mobile data centers from a supplier run by Boris Korolev, son of an FSB deputy director, as Ukraine has begun striking Yandex facilities.
Russian IT operators have long prepared for data-center attacks, conducting shutdown drills and moving traffic, and have increasingly turned to mobile, containerised facilities. One prominent vendor is tied to Boris Korolev, a 27-year-old deputy CEO of X Holding and son of FSB First Deputy Director Sergey Korolev. After Ukraine’s drone strikes damaged three of Yandex’s six data centers in early October—sites in Sasovo, Kaluga and Vladimir that housed the company’s three supercomputers—demand for such mobile units surged.
Suppliers like RTK-TsOD and Yadro price the empty containers at 18-25 million rubles, with fully equipped units reaching hundreds of millions. Deputy Digital Development Minister Yevgeny Filatov had earlier urged firms to relocate capacity beyond the Urals. Industry estimates suggest repairing the damaged equipment could take roughly six months, while the broader market sees a budget boost for traffic-filtering systems, allocating 60 billion rubles over three years.
Why it matters
It reveals how Russian elite connections shape critical tech infrastructure amid Ukraine’s attacks, impacting internet reliability and security.
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