Ukraine strikes fourth Russian data center Sberbank's Balakovo in Saratov region | Hacker News Reader

Ukraine strikes fourth Russian data center Sberbank's Balakovo in Saratov region

reuters.com

12 pointsck213 comments

It is becoming more difficult for Ukraine to keep up the fight with the US Administration actively working around the clock to undermine Ukraine. If someone told me a decade ago that the White house would embrace an adversary/Russia who seeks to destroy America, I would have thought they were crazy.

The greatest danger to our security and way of life is sitting in the White house conspiring with an axis of evil to destroy us and the mechanisms we had in place to protect us from this have failed. The Republicans can never be trusted again.

"datacenter denial as a service" (aka "Operation Quiet Piggy")

doesn't make up for all the innocent Ukrainians terrorized and killed

but maybe will make the internet a little more peaceful

Putin can end this any hour any day, simply stop attacking Ukraine

Agree this will never be able to make up for the harm caused, but if Ukraine keeps striking data centers and oil infrastructure, Russia gets to some form of economic and internal socio operating failure. They won't disappear, but it may put the parasite into stasis while allowing the developed world to catch up against them to more robustly defend against them continually.

there is one remaining problem though

and it may be insurmountable, at least for the next 800 days

https://www.reddit.com/r/Keep_Track/comments/j6z8eh

Europe (missiles) and Canada (drones) have committed to keeping Ukraine supplied with munitions, Europe is moving off of Starlink. What else do they need to replace to decouple from the US for any needs?

the starlink that Ukraine relies on to keep innocent people from being killed is not the ordinary starlink and cannot be replaced anytime soon by Europe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield

it won't even be replaced this decade by Europe

there's no way to intercept Russia's ballistic missiles without it, too fast too deadly

Ukraine is about to have the most brutal winter this year, I hope they can survive

Go big or go home. Putin will not stop, so Ukraine has to keep going until it cripples Russia. Trump and Putin will only try to slow Ukraine with talks of truces and whatnot, ignore them and press on. Half of Russian oil refineries are down from attacks, last half to go.

Long range attacks have taken place without Starlink from a historical perspective, they might need to take place with onboard vision LLMs, terrain following, and other self contained navigation systems to avoid further capability degradation. Lean into cheap off the shelf autonomy, for both defense and offense.

Zelenskyy Defies Trump, Orders New Russian Refinery Attacks - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-15/ukraine-t... - October 14th, 2026

Ukraine claims its strikes have taken out more than half of Russia's oil refining capacity - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/ukraine-claims-its-strike... - October 5th, 2026

Ukraine hits Russian refinery as Starlink satellite services are restored - https://www.axios.com/2026/10/15/ukraine-starlink-restored-s... - October 15th, 2026

>What else do they need to replace to decouple from the US for any needs?

Oil and gas.

Ember Energy: EV Sales Data Tracker - https://ember-energy.org/data/ev-sales-tracker/ (updated monthly) (scope to Europe, electric vehicles (EVs) represent the single largest lever for reducing fossil import dependence")

Ember Energy: European electricity prices and costs - https://ember-energy.org/data/european-electricity-prices-an... - (updated daily)

Collected vehicle registration data - https://robbieandrew.github.io/carsales/?lang=en&freq=monthl... (scoped to EU, EFTA, and UK)

Europe’s competitiveness depends on electricity grids - https://www.eib.org/en/stories/europe-electricity-grids - October 13th, 2026 (Europe installed ~80GW of renewable capacity in 2026, ~480GW is waiting to be connected, renewables and nuclear now generate over 70% of the EU’s electricity, and collectively ~750GW of renewable generation capacity is currently online and producing, as of this comment)

European EV sales hit record in 'pivotal' year for affordable cars, study shows - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/europe... - October 5th, 2026

Europe's Renewables Boom is Becoming a Gas Demand Bust - https://www.reuters.com/commentary/reuters-open-interest/eur... - August 13th, 2026

Ember Energy: European Electricity Review 2026 - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/european-electricit... (Wind and solar surpass fossil fuels in half of EU countries in 2025)

(China destroyed oil import demand by an amount the UK imports annually in less than six months with rapid EV uptake, so it can be done; speed is a matter of will and capital)

We still have never recovered to electricity prices pre-Covid, and that's despite very little growth in energy intensive industries since then. If I look at the US, then we should also expect any serious datacenter push in EU to also be powered by dirty stuff for expediency's sake.

>China destroyed oil import demand by an amount the UK imports annually in less than six months with rapid EV uptake

China has been working on EVs for like 15 years, we still have German manufacturers begging for exemptions on ICE phaseouts right now. At some point we just need to be honest and say that the Great (EV) Leap Forward won't happen and it will take like 10 years to get there.

I can bet that if in 2 years for some reason oil crashes to 30 USD we will have consumer protection orgs arguing for further extensions on ICE cars "to fight inflation" or something.

Europe needs more batteries, cross border interconnectors, transmission, etc, as they have hundreds of hours per year with negative electricity prices. Once battery deployment rate catches up, and renewables keeps up or goes faster, energy prices should go back down as the last 30% of fossil gas is pushed out of the energy mix.

4-hour battery storage is cheaper to install than gas turbines all across globe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50007519 - October 2026

Germany produces three times more solar power than Australia so far this year - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49891839 - September 2026

Rise of negatively priced hours points to reshaping of Europe's power markets - https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news... - August 24th, 2026

Largest battery storage in Germany set for partial commissioning - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104584 - July 2026

Germany’s battery opportunity - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/germanys-battery-op... - May 13th, 2026

- Germany hosts around a quarter of the EU’s total large-scale battery capacity, with over 2.5 GW operational by the end of 2025 – more than double the capacity of just two years earlier. A robust project pipeline and high social acceptance of the technology among German municipalities point to continued growth, with over 10 GW expected capacity, but policy barriers could hold it back.

- If Germany’s expected new large-scale battery projects had been operational in 2025, they could have avoided approximately one-third of wind and solar curtailment, cutting redispatch costs and gas purchases by about €0.8 billion. This exceeds the required investment in batteries.

- Germany’s residential battery market is Europe’s largest and shows prospects for continued growth – roughly one in six homeowners already has a battery installed, and 30% are considering purchasing one within the next five years. Smart charging of these batteries could relieve bottlenecks in the distribution grid and avoid significant system costs.

Europe Saw Record Surge in Negative Power Prices in 2025 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46502094 - January 2026

- Surging renewable output overwhelmed Europe’s power grid in 2025, driving electricity prices below zero more often than ever before.

- Negative power prices are underscoring how rapid growth in renewable generation is colliding with stagnant demand and persistent grid constraints in Europe. Germany logged 573 hours of negative prices in 2025, a 25% increase from the previous year. And Spain, which experienced negative prices for the first time in 2024, has since seen them double year-on-year.

- When strong winds or abundant sunshine flood the system with renewable power, demand is often insufficient to absorb the surplus, pushing electricity prices into negative territory. This pattern is set to continue in 2026, according to BloombergNEF, as renewable capacity continues to expand faster than grids, storage and consumption.

> China has been working on EVs for like 15 years, we still have German manufacturers begging for exemptions on ICE phaseouts right now. At some point we just need to be honest and say that the Great (EV) Leap Forward won't happen and it will take like 10 years to get there.

EV sales are growing 20% per year globally, and are already a majority of sales in China, the world's largest market. How fast we get to further tipping points is a function of how long oil supply chains remain impaired. We will get there eventually. Peak combustion vehicle sales was in 2017. As of this comment, China can manufacture ~50M EVs/year (global annual light vehicle TAM is ~90M units/year) and is exporting ~12M EVs/year. BYD plans to hire 40k auto workers in Europe over the next several years.

Maybe European legacy automakers finds the will to build EVs, maybe not. It's immaterial at this point. BYD can buy the factories and employ the workers if they lack the will. The EVs will be built and sold at scale.

BYD Targets About 40,000 European Employees by 2030 - https://www.briefs.co/news/byd-targets-about-40-000-european... - October 12th, 2026

- BYD plans to lift its European headcount to "absolutely over 40,000 in 2030," up from just over 10,000 soon.

- Its first European plant, in Hungary, is aiming to start mass production in the fourth quarter, with France and Spain shortlisted for additional sites.

Global sales of combustion engine cars peaked in 2017 - https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/global-sales-of-com... - May 21st, 2026

Our World In Data: Number of new electric cars sold 2010 to 2025 - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electric-car-sales?tab=li...

You're absolutely correct...lets hope Putin and his Empire of Evil end up on the dung heaps of Asia where Russia was born.....

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