Russian telecoms giant Rostelecom is exploring the development of underground data centers after drone strikes on facilities in the country.

The partially state-owned company, which offers its own cloud service, is in talks with Norilsk Nickel about such a project. Rostelecom VP Valeriy Ermakov previously spoke of the need for "doomsday" data centers.

Russian newspaper Vedomosti reports that Rostelecom is in advanced talks with the nickel and palladium mining and smelting company.

The world's largest producer of refined nickel, Norilsk operates a number of mines, as well as its own power plants. The company is not sanctioned, but its controlling shareholder, Vladimir Potanin, has been sanctioned. The US and UK have implemented bans on imports of Russian-origin aluminum, copper, and nickel.

Russia has increasingly looked to move its data centers underground. Last month, the governor of the Kemerovo Oblast, Ilya Seredyuk, proposed locating data centers in abandoned coal pits.

The coal sector has seen a sharp slowdown, so the effort could both support the local industry and protect the data centers.

Years into Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, data centers have increasingly become targets of war. Ukrainian drones have hit Yandex data centers at least three times, alongside facilities operated by Russian bank Sberbank and social media firm VK.

Earlier this year, Ukrainian forces struck a data center in Russian-occupied Ukraine in Prymorsk.

Russia has similarly targeted Ukrainian data centers.

Facilities around Kyiv operated by Parkovyi Data Center, MiroHost, Datagroup, Vodafone Ukraine, De Novo, Cosmonova, Omega Telecom, Ukrsibbank, and Ukrtelecom have been hit in recent months. Outside Kyiv, facilities operated by Tenet in Odesa and the RX-Name data center in the Nikolaev/Mykolaiv area of southern Ukraine have also been hit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky specifically said that attacks on Yandex facilities were a response to attacks on Kyiv facilities. "We always respond in kind. As for data centers, you all know, they have been and continue to attack our data centers. We've responded," he said.

Despite Russia's ongoing occupation of Ukrainian territory and lengthy war, the US government could be considering a joint partnership with the country on data centers.

Special Envoy to the Russian President Kirill Dmitriev in October claimed that a data center joint initiative is under discussion, with several Russian companies “actively participating." The US government has not confirmed any discussions.