Why data centers have become military targets

Plus: Trump's Russia diesel deal  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Richard Hall | October 12, 2026     Hello there and welcome to The Brief. President Donald Trump has called again for Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy sector, seemingly in an effort to bring down energy prices in the United States. As he tries to make that deal, another kind of infrastructure war may be brewing. We also have footage from renewed protests in India as the youth-led Cockroach movement returns with new demands. IN TODAY’S BRIEF Energy wars Trump mulls Houthi strikes How music can reduce pain Data centers become a military target Early voting numbers Cockroach protests         READ THIS FIRST Trump claims Russia and Ukraine agree ‘energy cease-fire’ Alex Brandon—Associated Press President Donald Trump claimed Sunday that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to an “energy ceasefire.” The announcement followed a deal he unveiled Oct. 9 to bring Russian diesel to U.S. and global markets—and Oct. 10 remarks blaming President Volodymyr Zelensky specifically for the diesel shortage driving up prices in the U.S. “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday, without providing additional details about the deal. “Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!”  Zelensky told Axios the same day that the ceasefire “was news for me.” He wrote on X that Ukraine “supports the ceasefire, and it’s important for Russia to support it as well.” Zelensky offered the same response when Trump made a similar, unsubstantiated claim Sept. 14. In the days that followed, both countries continued to strike one another’s energy facilities.  Trump has repeatedly asked Zelensky to stop targeting Russian oil refineries and blamed Ukraine for contributing to global diesel shortages. Read the full story here.         SPONSORED REVERB Live concerts bring millions of fans together through music. Behind the scenes, REVERB channels that energy into environmental action. See how REVERB has helped eliminate 4.6 million single-use bottles and is driving an entire industry to make sustainability part of every show. Watch the episode         HAPPENING NOW Trump considers U.S. involvement as Houthis attack Saudi airports Aaron Schwartz—Getty Images President Donald Trump told reporters on Saturday that the United States “may” join Saudi Arabia’s strikes on the Yemeni Houthis, after multiple airport attacks killed at least 13 people in recent days. The latest led to a near-complete shutdown of public air traffic into and out of the capital Riyadh. His comments came shortly after a missile struck King Khalid International Airport, the second-busiest airport in Saudi Arabia. Some 400 flights were canceled into and out of the airport amid a suspension of operations. The airport was struck again on Sunday. In September, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called Trump to urge him to act against the Houthis. The request came as the militia group gained ground over vital chokepoints in the Red Sea.  Although the two nations are allies, Washington said at the time that it did not have plans to strike the Houthis directly. On Thursday, Trump said the U.S. would not attack Iran again before the Nov. 3 midterms—a pledge that does not address possible strikes on the Houthis in Yemen. —T. Michelle Murphy Read the full story here.         HEALTH CHECK Your favorite song might make pain hurt less Alberto Case—Getty Images No one much likes the pain of a needle stick at a doctor’s office or hospital. But according to a new study in Frontiers in Pain Research, there’s one thing that can ease the sting: music. Listening to just the right soundtrack may be its own kind of anesthetic—one that could be useful for needle insertions and other painful medical procedures. “Although a needle puncture is a minor procedure, the level of pain can vary significantly from person to person,” said radiologist and lead author Dr. Andrei-Cristinel Dragnea of University Hospital Zürich, in a statement that accompanied the release of the study.  Why does some music appear to have an analgesic effect? The researchers did not try to answer the question definitively, but their findings did raise some possibilities. Listening to music, they write in the study, may trigger the release of endorphins, chemical messengers that bind to opioid receptors to reduce or eliminate pain. Music may also calm the body down, with a resulting reduction of blood pressure, heart rate, anxiety, and stress—all of which may reduce pain. —Jeffrey Kluger Read the full story here.         SPONSORED SEABOUND Nearly 90% of the world’s goods travel by ship. From the food on our shelves to the packages at our doors, shipping touches nearly every part of our lives, and so does its carbon footprint. Seabound is betting on an unexpected solution: a box of rocks. By turning limestone into a sponge that captures CO₂ emissions, the company is proving that small innovations can help change the course of global shipping. Watch the episode         IN FOCUS Data centers become a new front line  Kristina Kormilitsyna / Sputnik via Associated Press As President Donald Trump claims to have brokered an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to halt attacks on energy facilities, another crucial piece of infrastructure is increasingly becoming a target.  Ukrainian drone strikes since Oct 8. have targeted three data centers belonging to Russian tech giant Yandex, sometimes referred to as the country’s answer to Google. The company operates Russia’s most popular search engine and is at the forefront of the country’s AI industry. The first site hit, in Sasovo, houses two of the three supercomputers Yandex uses to develop its AI models, Reuters reported, and the outage disrupted several sites relying on Yandex’s cloud services, including Russian Railways, MegaFon, T-Bank, and several media outlets.  Kyiv’s strikes came in response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centers that began in late September, which have disrupted television broadcasts and internet access. Russia’s Defense Ministry said it was striking data centers because they “process and transmit intelligence data for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed on Friday that Ukraine had struck ‌a data center in the Kaluga region in what he called “our tit-for-tat response.” The exchange of strikes is part of a pattern of data centers coming under fire in war. It comes after Iran carried out a wave of strikes on U.S.-owned data centers across the Gulf in March in response to U.S.-Israeli attacks, hitting two Amazon facilities in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain.   The AI boom has led to a surge in demand for the data and cloud services the facilities provide, making them a critical part of modern infrastructure. They are relied on by telecommunications companies, banks, hospitals and energy suppliers. The use of AI by militaries around the world has made data centers even more of a strategic target. In Ukraine, especially, American AI companies have worked with the country’s military to develop drone technology and assist it in what its military leaders have described as a “data-driven” war. The attacks are likely to pose new challenges for governments and economies that have grown increasingly dependent on data centers. In an August report, the Brookings Institution noted that data centers “represent both significant intellectual property and strategic national capability,” and that they are “costly to conceal and often physically vulnerable.” Following Iran’s attacks on data centers in the Gulf in March, Emily Harding, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote that protecting data centers would require a new U.S. policy “that creates deterrence not just to protect life and health, but also data.” —Richard Hall         ONE NUMBER 3.1 million At least 3.1 million people have already voted in the 2026 midterms, according to analysis by the University of Florida’s Election Lab. Some 2.5 million of those were ballots cast by mail. SOURCE: UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA ELECTION LAB         A VIRAL MOMENT Cockroaches return Police detained thousands of protesters and several leaders of the youth-led Cockroach movement over the weekend, as demonstrators demanded the resignation of the country's election chief over controversial voter-roll revisions.         SPONSORED AMINI Across the Global South, Amini is working to ensure nations are not left out of their digital future. From climate intelligence to sovereign AI, Amini is building the infrastructure countries need to own their data, strengthen public services and create economic opportunity on their own terms. Watch the episode       Linked In this addictive word-association game, find the steps that will unite two seemingly unrelated words in just four moves. PLAY NOW       ALSO WORTH YOUR TIME IDEAS The Benefits of Prescribing Food as Medicine CLIMATE  Carbon Accounting May Be the Most Important Climate Fight You've Never Heard About       More Newsletters from Click to sign up. D.C. BRIEF +FUTURE PROOF +HEALTH MATTERS +INSIDE TIME +IN THE LOOP +WORTH YOUR TIME + Subscribe to TIME Email us: thebrief@time.com Received this from a friend? Sign up here Connect with TIME   PRIVACY POLICY     © 2026 TIME USA, LLC. All rights reserved. TIME Customer Service, P.O. Box 37508 Boone, IA 50037-0508, United States Unsubscribe