You now need a VPN to continue using YouTube in Russia

After weeks of rumors, it is now official: YouTube, the last Western social media platform still available in Russia, is said to no longer work.

This means that people in the country will now have to use the best VPN apps to continue accessing the platform.

To count more than 93 million users YouTube became a nationwide target of the Kremlin in early July, when authorities began restricting and slowing down access to the video platform.

Russian independent news outlet Meduza reported back then about plans to “permanently block” YouTube in September. However, it now appears that Russian censorship has moved faster than originally planned.

“Thousands of users have reported that they are unable to watch videos or access the YouTube site,” Meduza tweeted on August 8, 2024 (see tweet above).

UK Internet Watchdog NetBlocks also confirmed a “sudden marked decrease” in traffic from Thursday morning.

How to Unblock YouTube in Russia

Although the internet in Russia is increasingly restricted, there are still a number of ways to bypass the blocks. The most popular way is VPN software.

A virtual private network (VPN) is security software that encrypts your internet connections to increase your online privacy. At the same time, it also spoofs your real IP address to trick your internet service provider (ISP) into thinking you’re browsing from a completely different country in an instant. That last skill is exactly what you need to bypass government restrictions and other geo-restrictions.

All you need to do is sign up for your chosen service, download the app on your device and connect to one of the servers in a country without online restrictions.

It’s worth noting, however, that Russian censors are also quite active in preventing citizens from using these circumvention tools. Russian VPNs have been the target of censorship campaigns for years, with a new law coming into effect in March that now criminalizes the dissemination of information about ways to bypass internet restrictions.

Worse, around 25 popular VPN apps disappeared from the country’s Apple App Store in July, with experts fearing that the Google Play Store could soon be the next target.

While it’s becoming increasingly difficult to download a VPN app, there are still ways to bypass restrictions.

To start, I recommend downloading as many VPN apps as possible. That way, you can hop from one service to another in case of blocks. I recommend checking out our dedicated guide on the best free VPN services on the market to get the safest freebies out there.

Russian digital rights organization Roskomsvoboda has even developed its own VPN product, Amnezia Free, which you can also set up on your own server as a self-hosted VPN.

VPNs aren’t the only solutions either. So if you’re having trouble getting your service to work, I recommend using Tor Browser. Be aware that Tor routes your internet traffic through at least three layers of encryption while spoofing your IP location, which means it can slow down your connection. FreeBrowser is another tool similar to Tor, but only for Android devices. You can use this tool to grant access to geo-restricted content.