Russian President Vladimir Putin meets head of the North Ossetia–Alania region Sergei Menyailo (not pictured), at the Kremlin, in Moscow, Russia November 11, 2024. Sputnik/Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Pool via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin on Friday said problems with slower speeds on YouTube in Russia were linked to Google's failure to comply with Russian law and that President Vladimir Putin was looking into the issue.
Russian internet monitoring services have reported mass outages of the online video hosting service, which is owned by Alphabet's Google, in the last few months. Russia blames this on Google's failure to upgrade equipment, allegations disputed by the company and technology experts.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the question of improving speeds on YouTube, used by more than 50 million Russians every day, according to Mediascope, is not high on people's agendas.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
