Did Ukrainian strikes on Russian datacentres reduce online disinformation?

Ukraine struck three Yandex data centres in Russia beginning October 8, disrupting some of the company’s services. Online claims soon suggested the attacks had silenced Kremlin-linked propaganda bots, citing a decline in automated traffic associated with Yandex’s network. But that traffic includes search-engine crawlers and other automated requests—not just social media accounts spreading disinformation. Researchers monitoring influence operations reported no clear decline in known Russian-linked accounts or campaigns. The strikes disrupted infrastructure, but available evidence does not show they significantly reduced online disinformation