Last summer, the Russian authorities began throttling YouTube playback speeds, rendering the popular video platform practically unusable. YouTube videos began taking a long time to load — if they loaded at all — and it soon became all but impossible to watch anything without a VPN. By December 2024, YouTube traffic in Russia had dropped to 20 percent of normal levels, and experts deemed the platform de facto blocked. In the year since the “slowdown” began, YouTube has maintained a large chunk of its audience in Russia. However, the throttling of this genuinely popular video platform has pushed many Russians to change their media consumption habits. Meduza analyzes the present and potential consequences of the Kremlin’s ongoing campaign against YouTube.