> So I'd say the goal here is to intimidate and/or inconvenience the Russian public

Nope, the Russian public is mostly entirely checked out of politics and will roll with any inconvenience. You won't see any rioting in the streets due to this.

The point is to inflict economic harm on the elite around Putin--the owners of Yandex, the other companies using those datacenters, etc.

The point is not to take out the average Russian's internet search index.

A more important goal is for these strikes to get headlines and serve as Western-facing propaganda, with "hitting Russia's Google" and "hitting Russia's Amazon" being easily digestible for those in Europe and America. That still beats the effect this will have on the average Russian.

Russia isn't a Western Democracy.