MOSCOW, August 7. /TASS/. US-based Google has notified Russia’s state hi-tech corporation Rostec about blocking of its YouTube channel citing previously imposed sanctions, the Russian company said in a statement.

"Google notified us today about the blocking of Rostec’s YouTube channel and cited sanctions as a reason," Rostec said in its statement.

"It was a channel about the Russian engineering, our engineers and our technical innovations. The channel had about 45,000 subscribers and hundreds of thousands viewers annually," the company stated.

"This is an obvious example of how the Western democracy works in reality. This is not a democracy, but its imitation, when the freedom of an opinion is being strangled and mouths are being shut. There is no force and truth in such actions," the statement added.

Russia’s hi-tech state corporation Rostec also added that it was prepared for a possible elimination of its YouTube channel and copied all of its previously published videos to Rutube channel.

"Everyone can watch us on Rutube starting today," the company added in its statement.

In February 2022, the Russian Federal Anti-Monopoly Service found Google to have transgressed Russia’s antitrust laws. A case was opened against Google LLC due to YouTube’s dominant position on the services market.

It was initiated by a statement of the Regional Public Center of Internet Technologies, which had filed a complaint against Google’s actions of sudden blocking and deletion of accounts and user content on YouTube.