Russian commercial courts began postponing numerous hearings because of technical failures that followed attacks on Yandex data centers, Verstka reported on October 16 after examining court documents and reports of electronic service disruptions.
According to the journalists, hearings began to be canceled or postponed on October 8 following an attack on the company's data center in Sasovo, in Russia's Ryazan region.
Court documents and technical notices point to problems with the Electronic Justice system used by Russian commercial courts.
Verstka found that PravoTech, the company responsible for maintaining the courts' electronic infrastructure, sent notices to courts about a major failure at a Yandex Cloud data center.
The technical problems prevented courts from conducting some hearings by video link. Difficulties also arose with recording hearings, uploading documents and using the Moy Arbitr platform.
Between October 8 and 14, courts consequently postponed hearings, called recesses and, in some cases, encountered obstacles to reviewing applications.
The disruptions affected commercial courts in the Sverdlovsk, Smolensk, Tula, Kostroma, Ivanovo and Yaroslavl regions, Altai Krai and other areas.
Some problems persisted as of October 16, with users of electronic court services continuing to encounter errors when opening case records and documents.
Ukrainian drones had previously attacked several Russian data centers located in Sasovo, Kaluga and Vladimir. The strikes were accompanied by disruptions to various digital services.
Verstka's investigation points to a connection between the technical failures and disruptions to Yandex's cloud infrastructure. However, the precise technical cause of each individual hearing postponement has not been independently established.
The disruptions did not amount to a complete shutdown of Russia's court system.