They were scared of Ukrainian drones. Yandex Maps will hide the location of Russian refineries
news.online.ua
Sat, 04 Jan 2025 20:01:00 +0200
Yandex will hide maps of Russian refineries after Ukrainian attacksYandex will destroy images of oil refineries that allegedly made them extremely vulnerable to Ukrainian kamikaze dronesAccording to the Russian news agency TASS, Yandex was ordered to clean up satellite and cartographic images of an oil refinery that was targeted by drone strikes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.The requirement came after Russian regulators filed a lawsuit that found that detailed images of the countrys oil refineries were readily available from Yandex on a service similar to Google Maps.
The technology company must begin removing or retouching images of the facilitys components, including workshops, compressor stations, tanks, and other elements, from the Yandex Maps platform, the resolution states.
The court said that Yandexs technology makes the facility extremely vulnerable to enemy weapons.The blocking is the first time the Russian government has ordered Yandex to remove information from public maps to support its military operations, TASS reported.
Yandex declined to comment.The lawsuit says the facility has been attacked by Ukraine four times, though it does not name the plant.
It says the refinery operates continuously to support the Russian army and navy and that public access to the images undermines national defense capabilities.The Telegraph has been able to identify several major oil and gas plants in Russia that have reportedly been targeted by Ukrainian forces using Yandexs mapping tools.
Satellite imagery provides detailed views of several key sites, as well as panoramic drone shots and street views.
Drone war Ukraine responds to Russian attacksRussia has launched a wave of air and drone strikes on Kyivs power grid since invading Ukraine nearly three years ago.
Russian forces have destroyed about half of Ukraines domestic energy infrastructure and caused complete power outages since the war began.
Last year, Ukrainian forces began escalating their own attacks on the Kremlins oil and gas facilities, with drones targeting plants deep inside Russia, some hundreds of miles from the border.
The Ukrainian Defense Forces have also bombed ammunition factories using kamikaze drones, fired rockets, and sabotaged Russian railways carrying fuel.On December 22, dozens of Ukrainian drones attacked an oil depot in Russias Oryol region, the second major strike on the facility this month.
While Russia claimed to have shot down 20 drones, footage on social media showed the Steel Horse storage facility on fire.Last year, Ukraine damaged factories in Tatarstan, which is located more than 750 miles from the border, and St.
Petersburg.
Some of Ukraines allies have expressed concern about Kyivs decision to strike Russian infrastructure far from its own territory, fearing further escalation of a conflict that has already left 1 million soldiers killed or wounded.
Yandex under Western sanctionsYandex was founded as a search engine in 1997, dominating the Internet search market in Eastern Europe and competing with Google.
The tech company sometimes argued against the Kremlins censorship demands, but the Russian state later took a golden share in the business.After listing in the US over a decade ago, its value reached over 30bn 24bn in 2021.However, Russias invasion of Ukraine has seen the tech company hit with crippling sanctions from Western governments, and the Kremlin has sharply increased censorship of its search engine and news products.
After being blacklisted, Yandexs global business was split up, and last year it sold its Russian search division to local investors at a discounted price.
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