Russian users report YouTube is not working

Central Asia (CA) – On outage tracking services downDetector.su and Brand Analytics, there were numerous complaints from users in Russia that YouTube was inaccessible. The messages involved both the site and the service’s mobile app. Royal Bank of Canada reported on this.

Both services have seen a surge in complaints since the morning.

Problems accessing the service have been occurring in Russia since the beginning of the month, with some Russians having stopped playing high-quality videos (1080p and higher) in the most popular browsers on desktop.

Rostelecom explained the situation by problems with Google equipment, which had not been updated since hostilities broke out in Ukraine in 2022. Google responded by saying that “this was not the result of any technical issues or actions on our part.”

In July, Alexander Khinshtein, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, announced a “deterioration” in the quality of service, saying it was a move forced by the “anti-Russian policy” of Google’s parent company. He later explained the decline in YouTube video loading speed as a problem with data storage in Russian data centers. Khinshtein said that 80% of the YouTube video content watched by Russians is stored on Google servers in Russia. The deputy said that the loading speed of YouTube on desktop computers may drop to 40% and then to 70%.

The Kremlin has no plans to restrict access to YouTube in Russia, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on July 12. The Duma also ruled out the possibility of blocking video hosting. Anton Gorelkin, deputy director of the Information Policy Committee, assured that the slowdown of YouTube will not affect the stability of the Android mobile system and other Google services in the country. “In theory, such a threat would arise only in the event of a forced blockage of video hosting, but this scenario is not currently being considered,” he argued.