At the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, the research company Mediascope announced data indicating that Russians now spend half the time on YouTube compared to before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In January 2022, they spent 33% of their social media time on the American video hosting, but by May 2025, this share had decreased to 16%. The sharp decline in service usage began in August 2024, and by December, the service became virtually inaccessible. It can now only be accessed using a VPN.
However, the YouTube audience in Russia has not decreased as significantly. The monthly reach of YouTube in April 2025 was 64.6% of internet users (79.4 million people) compared to 78.7% (95.8 million people) in July 2024.
According to Mediascope director Ruslan Tagiev, the reduction in YouTube's share is part of a general trend of decreasing audiences for services that were blocked in Russia. He stated that in January 2022, Russians spent 70% of their social media time on these services. By May 2025, Russian and unblocked social platforms in Russia accounted for 60% of Russian users' time.
The main beneficiary of the audience reduction on foreign platforms, according to Mediascope data, was Telegram. The time users spend on this service increased from 5% in January 2022 to 22% in May 2025.
The share of "VKontakte" increased from 18% in January 2022 to 23% in May 2025. The time users spend on TikTok remained unchanged at 22%. The share of "Dzen" and RuTube in May 2025 was 5% and 3%, respectively.