Ranking of social media platforms in Russia 2023, by monthly publications

Vkontakte enjoyed the highest place in the ranking of social networks in Russia, at over 414 million monthly publications as of October 2023. Odnoklassniki followed with roughly 68 million publications per month.

Vkontakte: the Facebook of Russia

Vkontakte, also referred to as VK, primarily services the Russian market with a social network that borrows very heavily from Facebook in terms of design and function. VK has undergone significant growth over the past five years, with its user base rising from 43.9 million users in March 2016 to 79.5 million users in December 2022. In 2022, the number of downloads of the social media platform in question exceeded 14 million in Russia alone. VK’s presence is much smaller outside of Russia, however, with approximately 2.4 million downloads in Kazakhstan over the same period.  

Social media usage in Russia

Although Russians tend to display a preference for nationally developed services such as VK and Odnoklassniki, Western social networks also have a significant users' base. Namely, nearly 4.7 million Russians are using Twitter, while the number of Instagram users in the country stood at nearly 64 million users in January 2023. Approximately 71 million Russians were also using Facebook as of January 2023.