diff --git a/deploy/ansible/roles/common/tasks/main.yml b/deploy/ansible/roles/common/tasks/main.yml
index a2da8ba..378b7b9 100644
--- a/deploy/ansible/roles/common/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/deploy/ansible/roles/common/tasks/main.yml
@@ -150,6 +150,13 @@
     enabled: true
     state: started
 
+# Pin every host to UTC so host-level timestamps (journald, file mtimes, cron) line up
+# across the fleet — some VPS images ship a local zone (the tg host came up on MSK). The
+# services themselves run in UTC regardless; this is about host-side log correlation.
+- name: Set the system timezone to UTC
+  community.general.timezone:
+    name: Etc/UTC
+
 # --- Swap file (OOM cushion) ---------------------------------------------------
 # The prod main host is tight (1.9 GiB) and the per-container memory caps
 # (docker-compose.prod.yml) sum to more than RAM, so a simultaneous spike could hit