Russia comes up on ToTheMoon not as a market the channel tracks week to week but as a reference point: the hosts live in the United States, a large share of the audience is in Russia and neighbouring countries, and viewers keep asking where Russia stands in the AI race. That produces two kinds of story: everyday comparisons of automation economics, blocked services and VPN access, and the direct question of what it would take for the country's place in the global ranking to move.
Early episodes offer personal observations. In episode 015 Alexander recalls a partner who ran a large retail chain: “He says that in Russia it is more advantageous to hire people than to introduce automated robots” — the same technology, different economics where labour is cheap. Episode 021, prompted by Pavel Durov's arrest, asks why LinkedIn is blocked in Russia while Google is not, and how the campaign against Telegram turned into advertising for a supposedly unbreakable messenger.
In 2025 the subject gets an episode of its own. Trailing it in episode 067, the hosts promise not to bust myths but to show where to look and what to apply; the special July 2025 episode on Russia's 31st place in AI argues that both panic and dismissal are too simple: Russia has a strong mathematical tradition and its own models, but the race runs on compute, capital, products and a large audience, and infrastructure locks the gap in. Later mentions are brief: the first Russian robot falling on stage in episode 084, and Russian bloggers reaching Instagram and YouTube through a VPN in episode 097.