Europe Is Terrified – The Russians Are Coming And Your Data Is At Risk
I’ve spoken about this issue for a number of years, including how all of Europe is within firing range of the Russians and that EU datacenters are at risk. That itself was never an imminent concern, but a probable future concern, until what I call the NATO-Russia war, has escalated. NATO and European countries have openly called for war with Russia, while sending soldiers and weapons to the frontlines. Russia has responded for a long time by threatening to bomb major EU centres. As recently as 2024, NATO admitted it was preparing for an imminent and direct war with Russia.
We also see a strange split between NATO and the EU, where the EU feels there is an imminent threat, while NATO says there is none:
European leaders prepare public for ‘intensified threat’ from Putin
However, NATO sees no risk of “imminent attack” despite the fresh warnings from countries such as Poland, Lithuania, France and the Netherlands.
— https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-vladimir-putin-nato-drone-attacks-europe-leaders-warning/
The EU itself has never had sovereignty, privacy or data security as I’ve posted about repeatedly, but now you have the additional threat of war. Any war, even if extremely limited, I argue will most likely target European datacenters in a very similar way as Iran has done in the Gulf. For the most part, attacks on Gulf countries were limited to US military bases, and several foreign datacenters such as AWS and Oracle whether in the UAE or Bahrain.
In a statement on Saturday clarifying an announcement by Donald Trump that an agreement had been reached to give Washington “permanent control” over Greenland’s security, Denmark and the semiautonomous territory expressed hope that a deal would end friction with the US over the issue. — https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/19/denmark-greenland-us-military-agreement-territorial-sovereignty
In recent years more EU countries lost their neutrality such as Sweden and Finland, by joining NATO and provoking the ire of Russia. Of course they are within easy reach of Russia, especially with Finland sharing a border with Russia.
Russia has said it will be forced to take “retaliatory steps” over its neighbour Finland’s move to join Nato. — https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61420185
As I share some sources below, the Russians have blown up several datacenters in Ukraine in recent months. This mirrors similar actions by Iran who attacked datacenters in neighbouring countries, arguing they served hostile military purposes. Do you see where this is going? As the war continues to escalate and NATO, especially the EU move more aggressively to war with Russia, it is no longer just “theoretical” or a “far distance” threat that Russia could strike major EU centers. Russia argues that it has already been at war with NATO and particularly the EU for years and views most of Europe as being the true source of the war machine that it is facing off with in Ukraine.
European Datacenters That Have Been Blown Up This Summer
- https://www.rt.com/russia/645430-russian-strikes-kiev-datacenter/
- https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/russia-claims-strikes-on-de-novo-data-center-in-kyiv-ukraine/
- https://ukranews.com/en/news/1160923-one-of-the-key-kyiv-data-centers-damaged-due-to-massive-missile-attack
- https://www.chinadailyhk.com/hk/article/639776
What Can Be Done?
All of Europe is easily targeted by Russia, so you’ll need to have your data secured in a place that won’t be. This could be friendly countries in the area such as Turkey who has been unscathed by numerous wars and is a sovereign and strong nation, respected by its neighbours and international community.
Turkey is technically in Europe (its Western side), their internet is EU biased and internet wise it is almost exactly the same as being in Bulgaria with low latency to all of Europe. It is an excellent option for EU companies with no political exposure to Turkey.
Canada is a great ally of the EU and its ties are growing closer each day. Canada has reasonably low latency to Europe when hosting in places like Toronto. Toronto internet is almost the same as Chicago and is the #3 peering point in all of North America. If you don’t need extreme privacy, but want more freedom and privacy than the EU, Canada is a great alternative.
Hong Kong is where we build cyberbunkers for our clients. It is neutral and has extremely good international connectivity, including direct connectivity to Europe via DE-CIX. If you want a place whose business and privacy laws, do not change every 4 years, Hong Kong is the bullet-proof solution to your data security concerns.
Could I Be Wrong?
I hope so, but I was not surprised to see datacenters in the Ukraine or the Gulf targeted in a military conflict. I hope I am very wrong and both sides de-escalate as I will certainly not be willing to fight in a pointless and endless war that should have been resolved by negotiation. With that said, I feel for civilians in both Ukraine and Russia, who are the victims of geopolitical ambitions. But data doesn’t care about our predictions or our feelings, and it would be inconceivable that if the war expands directly into Europe, that datacenters won’t be among the first targets and this precedent has been set for all future wars. So much of the war effort lives inside the datacenter now and this makes them a liability that impacts your business and your wealth.
On that note, this is why I predict the future will be one of isolating and using on-premise facilities, rather than huge targets which are hyperscale datacenters, and this is where Techrich consults, and implements solutions for our valuable clients, HNWs and family offices from around the world.
