Putin mentioned the conditions for the resumption of YouTube in Russia

“Youtube and Google must comply with our laws and avoid Internet scams, and must not abuse the network to achieve the political goals of their governments,” Putin emphasized.

According to him, Google users in Russia find information in the search results that has nothing to do with the request, “but is propaganda from some political platform.” In addition, the search engine “removes from circulation” the names of Russian artists, bloggers and political figures, the president said.

“All this is a violation of the relevant laws of the Russian Federation. Accordingly, Roskomnadzor files claims against them. And he is doing the right thing,” he said.

Putin added that national platforms (VK, Telegram and Rutube) can replace YouTube in Russia. “A holy place is never empty. If Google and YouTube, understanding this, somehow change their framework, then they will not have any problems,” the president promised.

At the same time, he explained the slowdown in YouTube’s operation in Russia by the fact that Google, in the context of sanctions, reduced financing for Russian subsidiaries and the supply of necessary equipment to the country. “In this way, certain problems were created,” Putin concluded.

YouTube began to slow down in Russia at the end of July. Roskomnadzor explained the deterioration in video hosting performance by saying that Google “has stopped supporting the infrastructure of its cache servers in our communication networks.” The company said it was aware of the issues with YouTube in Russia, but stressed that “this is not the result of any technical issue or action on our part.”

On November 14, Mosfilm head Karen Shakhnazarov said she had met with Putin, who promised to “cope” with YouTube’s slowdown. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov later confirmed that Putin promised to “look into this issue,” but noted that slowing down YouTube “is not on the list of priority issues.”