"In the late 2010s, the Internet overtook television as the most popular media format in Russia. It was also the time when Russian-speaking YouTube went political: well-known bloggers started producing political content, opposition politicians became the most popular YouTubers, and finally mainstream journalists migrated to the platform, a move precipitated by Covid-19 isolation when the demand for Russian-speaking content on YouTube skyrocketed. Therefore, it came as no surprise that when the war started it was YouTube that became the main battlefield for independent Russian journalists, including those who had moved out of the country. However, YouTube was also used by Russian propaganda for years with great effect. For that reason, the Russian government was hesitant to block YouTube, unlike other global platforms that Kremlin censors blocked immediately after the war started. That provided time for Russian users to adapt and install censorship circumvention tools. The other platform that was not immediately blocked was Telegram, and Russian journalists didn’t miss that opportunity to talk to their audience either." (Summary, page 4)