YouTube slowed down in occupied Luhansk

YouTube video hosting has been slowed down in the occupied part of the Luhansk region. The problem first spread to Russia and then to the occupied territory of Ukraine, residents shared on social media, Realna Gazeta reports.

Users complain that videos have stopped loading, and the site loads intermittently. At the same time, the hosting site loads via some VPN services. The mobile version of YouTube is also still working.

Russian top propagandist Margarita Simonyan wrote a Telegram post with the words “YouTube is kaput. Because there is no need”.

And Luhansk propagandists posted a staged video on one of the Telegram channels about how pensioners are “burying” YouTube. The authors of the publication claim that these are residents of Luhansk.

In July, Rostelecom announced the slowdown of YouTube in Russia, explaining it by “degradation of Google equipment” in Russia. Later, the aggressor country directly stated that it was going to slow down YouTube by 70%.

“‘Degradation’ of YouTube is a necessary step made not against Russian users but against the administration of a foreign resource, who still believes that they can violate and ignore our legislation with impunity,” said Alexander Hinstein, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications.

As Realna Gazeta reported, on July 12, the Russian authorities also carried out the so-called “degradation” of YouTube, which led to a decrease in the speed of video loads for Russian users.

In March 2023, it became known that specialists from China had arrived in Russia to help arrange the blocking of YouTube.