President Vladimir Putin is looking into slow speeds and disruptions on YouTube in Russia after the country's top cinema official raised the matter with him, the Kremlin said on Friday. Critics believe YouTube is being deliberately disrupted by the authorities to prevent Russians from viewing a mass of content there that is critical of Putin and his government.

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,

President Vladimir Putin is investigating slow YouTube speeds in Russia after concerns raised by cinema official Karen Shakhnazarov. While critics argue intentional disruption, Russia attributes it to Google's equipment issues.