Russian authorities' efforts to challenge YouTube have seen limited success, even as its largest local competitor, VK, overtook it in audience reach for the first time last December.

A major source of uncensored news

Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 boosted YouTube audiences, as Russians sought information from independent sources rather than the heavily censored war coverage of official media.

Following the start of the war, the Russian YouTube audience grew smoothly but steadily, based on data from the media research firm Mediascope. In the first half of 2022 it averaged 89.1mn users per month; in the second half 91.5mn. In the first half of 2023, it reached 93.1mn, while the year's second half saw an increase to 95.5mn. In the first half of 2024, 95.9mn Russians used YouTube.

In total, over nearly three war years, the service gained 6.8mn new users.

Meanwhile, 2024 saw two major spikes in Russian YouTube viewership, both driven by the news agenda. The first spike occurred in February-March, likely prompted by events such as the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the terrorist attack on Moscow's Crocus City Hall concert venue. In August, another major surge followed the Ukrainian military forces' incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. Apparently Russian users distrusted official media’s coverage of these events and turned to independent sources for information.

Overall, in the past two years, Mediascope recorded the largest monthly reach of YouTube in March 2024: at that time it exceeded 96mn Russians, while VK had 90mn users at that time.

Slowdown rather than shutdown

Rumours of a possible YouTube shutdown in Russia have circulated since the country's attack on Ukraine. However, Russian authorities have never taken steps to completely block access to YouTube, which has long been the most popular video platform in the country. Some experts believe the government was waiting for local YouTube competitors to grow their audiences – something they have struggled to achieve.

Still, in the second half of 2024 authorities introduced a new tactic: slowing down YouTube. This was intended to make watching videos less convenient, ultimately pushing users towards alternative platforms.

Russian Internet providers began complaining about problems with video playback on YouTube in early August 2024. At the same time, the service continued to operate smoothly on mobile networks. At that time, Russia's media watchdog Roskomnadzor claimed that the decline in the quality of the video service was due to Google's withdrawal from Russia and the termination of support for Google's Global Cache caching server infrastructure. But Google denied that the problem was caused by technical issues or the company's actions. It became apparent that Russia had tried to deliberately slow down YouTube.

In mid-December 2024, users of mobile operators began to complain about the inability to view videos on YouTube. Some media even reported that the service was completely blocked in Russia. Roskomnadzor did not confirm this information, but did not deny it either, noting only that the agency has ‘tools to motivate the company’.

The first noticeable drop of YouTube audiences – to 92.9mn – was recorded in September 2024 against the background of the slowdown of the service on computers and Smart TVs. Still, the first YouTube slowdown did not lead to a major decrease in the platform's traffic in Russia. The second slowdown, however, caused a decline in traffic between 20 December and 20 January, which fell by around 10% compared to the same period in 2023/24. Meanwhile, compared to the first three weeks of December – before the start of the second phase of the slowdown – the first three weeks of January 2025 showed virtually no decrease in traffic for those YouTube channels which did not voluntarily reduce their activity.

VK overtakes YouTube

Apparently, the December slowdown helped YouTube's main local competitor, VK or VKontakte – which runs two video services, VK Video and VK Clips – to overtake YouTube in terms of monthly reach for the first time. Mediascope also recorded a 6% year-on-year decline in all video streaming traffic after its complete slowdown in Russia.

The combined monthly reach of VK Video and VK Clips among Russian users in December 2024 was almost 92mn people, according to Mediascope data, compared with YouTube's number of 89.6mn in the same month.

What drives the growth of VK Video?

VK explains the success of its video services by the synergy between the platform's video offerings and other services, as well as by the fact that VK Video and VK Clips "updated their recommendation algorithms, increased the base of original content and launched new monetisation tools for authors," the company said.

As a result, according to VKontakte's own data, the total time spent watching content in VK Video in late December 2024 until early January 2025 quadrupled y/y and reached 2.2bn minutes per day. The average daily number of views of VK Clips for the year increased 2.6 times and reached 2.5bn. In addition, VKontakte reported an increase in the quality of recommendations in its products, updating the social network feed and the launch of a platform for placing native integrations for bloggers.

A narrow lead

Still, at the moment, VKontakte’s lead over YouTube remains narrow, despite all efforts by Russian authorities to slow down the US video platform, Denis Kuskov, head of the research firm TelecomDaily, was quoted as saying by the Russian business daily RBC.

Despite the slowdown, YouTube's reach declined only slightly, Kuskov observed, adding that Russian audiences had apparently developed a strong habit and interest in the content available on YouTube.

"Users will use to all possible options to access YouTube," he said, referring to the common practice of using VPN services to access websites blocked in Russia. "To achieve further growth, VK needs to change its monetisation system and build a new strategy for attracting bloggers," he concluded.

According to Kirill Tanaev, director of the Institute of Modern Media, contemporary Russian audiences, especially those who are young, spend substantial time watching videos on whatever platform where the content they're interested in s available.

"They watch something on YouTube, something in VK, and if they can't find it there, they return to YouTube despite the slowdown," he told RBC. "In addition, until mid-December, there was almost no slowdown on mobile devices, and many people choose to watch videos on smartphones."

Even with the slowdown, it is not easy to compete with YouTube, Tanaev went on to say, as there will always be a large volume of content there on an exclusive basis. In addition, the US video hosting platform provides a host of author-friendly ways to monetise content.

"This is important specifically for bloggers, and it is the abundance of such content that is lacking on VK," he charged.

Looking ahead

As it stands, Russians are likely to continue actively using YouTube for various types of video content, some of which are unavailable on VK or other Russian platforms. Last year’s slowdowns seem to have done little to deter them from using the US video service.

YouTube is likely to be especially crucial during major news events when users seek alternative sources of information. And if Russian authorities eventually take the drastic step of completely banning YouTube, accessing the platform via VPN will remain an option.