Russian users are facing major problems with YouTube lately. The site is either loading very slowly or not working at all for many people. Although YouTube isn’t officially banned in Russia, the outages have been increasing. Members of the ruling United Russia Party are threatening to further restrict access to YouTube this fall. The platform has become a significant rival to TV for political content in Russia. Until recently, the Kremlin couldn’t block YouTube, but now it has the capability. However, blocking YouTube might drastically slow down the entire internet in Russia.

Why is YouTube slowing down in Russia?

There are two main reasons for YouTube’s poor performance in Russia: one technical and one political.

First, the technical issue. YouTube’s local equipment in Russia, installed by Google until 2022, is outdated. After Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Google stopped its operations in Russia. Russian courts then fined Google about $370 million for n...