The State Duma named the conditions for the resumption of YouTube's work

Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, said on February 18 that the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions by Western countries is not enough for YouTube to resume operations in Russia. According to him, a number of important issues remain unresolved, including Google's unpaid fines.

"The mere condition of lifting sanctions is not enough. Even if Google will again be able to make settlements with Russian contractors and perform maintenance of its equipment installed at telecom operators, several important issues remain open," TASS quoted Gorelkin as saying.

Among these issues, he said, are the lack of transparency in blocking the accounts of Russian media and bloggers, failure to comply with court decisions to remove illegal content, and failure to fulfill the requirements of the law on "landing." Gorelkin reminded that according to this law, Google should open a representative office in Russia instead of the one previously bankrupted on their own initiative.

Natural fence: the audience of Russian video services increased by 30 million over the year

What's behind the growth and whether this trend will continue in 2025

Earlier, in December 2024, it became known that Google Play from December 26 "for an indefinite period" stops cooperation with developers whose bank account is registered in Russia.

Before that, on August 14, Google began to delete Russian AdSense accounts without prior notice. Some Russian authors received messages saying that their accounts would be deactivated by the end of August. However, bloggers who faced account blocking on August 14 did not receive these kinds of notifications. The reasons for this discrepancy are not known.