"We won't be able to catch up with them." Gazprom's Rutube is 10 years behind YouTube.

Today, the Russian video hosting site Rutube lags behind Western YouTube in development by approximately 10 years, and is unlikely to catch up with its competitors.

Well-known IT entrepreneur Igor Ashmanov announced this on the Empathy Manuchi channel , as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.

"YouTube has always had US government support . Eric Schmid was Google's CEO for 17 years, and now he's created White Stork in Kyiv and is making kamikaze attacks – they're training on us, killing Russians. He's a direct enemy, a figure of enormous stature, and he's developed it. YouTube hasn't stood still, like Rutube , which was abandoned for 10 years ; it's evolved. Demanding that we maintain the same level of quality is unrealistic; we can't catch up.

When the SVO began, when they started making some moves , when Gazprom was asked, "You bought Rutube 10 years ago—and where is it?" It's improved. Now it's like YouTube 10 years ago. Where is the quality line? Comparing it to YouTube is awkward; it turns out it's significantly worse. But people used YouTube 10 years ago, right? Now, Rutube is about the same ," the expert reasoned.

YouTube's growth was fueled by a payout system for content creators. Rutube, meanwhile, was promoted by relying on celebrity endorsements.

"YouTube is a truly great platform – faster, smoother, higher quality. But there's another peculiarity. YouTube, like Facebook [banned in Russia], like some other Western services, thrived on the masses of small and medium-sized creators; they created all the conditions for making money . They know how to work with a large number of creators and make them feel good. But Rutube prefers celebrities and works with the big guys," Ashmanov explained.

He believes it's unlikely anyone in Russia will be able to launch an alternative to Rutube, but niche private projects are possible:

" The state should create a unified power, and anyone who wants to compete on top of this should write their own player and compete on the basis of beauty and content."