The situation in brief
The best video models today are made by Western and Chinese companies: Google (Veo), Kuaishou (Kling), ByteDance (Seedance), Alibaba (Wan), MiniMax (Hailuo). OpenAI shut its Sora down: the API was switched off on 24 September 2026. Reaching them directly from Russia is hard for two reasons: the interface is often closed to Russian IPs, and payment with a Russian card does not go through.
Yet you can generate video from Russia. There are three routes, and each has its own price.
A disclaimer up front: I build one of the Russian services, so I have a conflict of interest. To keep this from turning into an ad, I will go through all three routes honestly, including the downsides of my own.
Route 1. International services directly
The models’ original sites or international aggregators.
What you will need: a VPN for access and a foreign card or an intermediary for payment. An important detail: a VPN on its own does not solve payment; it changes your IP, not the country where the card was issued. More on this in the article on how to pay for AI services from Russia.
Pros: access to the newest features on release day, sometimes unique platform tools.
Cons: a VPN, a foreign card or an intermediary with a commission, subscriptions with expiring credits, the risk of an account block when the IP country and the card country do not match.
Who it suits: those who already have a foreign card and work with one specific service every day.
Route 2. Domestic models
Russian companies also make video models; the best known is Kandinsky Video from Sber.
Pros: works without a VPN, often free or very cheap, no payment problems.
Cons: in quality, clip length and capabilities (sound, character stability, camera movement) the top Western models are still noticeably ahead.
Who it suits: simple tasks, experiments and situations with a zero budget. For ads, cartoons and complex scenes it usually falls short.
Route 3. Russian aggregators of Western models
A Russian service connects to Western models directly through their APIs and sells you generations for rubles.
Pros: payment by Russian card, no VPN and no intermediaries, several models in one window, often pay-per-generation without a subscription.
Cons: the newest features of a specific platform may arrive with a delay. The set of models depends on what the service has connected.
Important to understand: the generation quality here is the same as the original. A clip made in Veo 3.1 through a Russian aggregator and a clip made in Veo directly are the same clip, because the same model is inside. The only difference is the packaging and the payment method.
Comparing the routes
| International service | Domestic model | Russian aggregator | |
|---|---|---|---|
| VPN needed | often yes | no | no |
| Payment by Russian card | no | yes | yes |
| Top Western models | yes | no | yes |
| Subscription with expiring credits | usually yes | varies | varies |
| Risk of an account block | yes | no | no |
A checklist for choosing a service
Whatever service you are considering, look at five things:
- Which models are inside. If the model you need is not there, you can stop looking.
- How to pay. Rubles with an ordinary card or foreign currency through an intermediary.
- Subscription or pay-per-generation. In subscriptions unused credits usually expire at the end of the month. If you generate irregularly, pay-per-generation is almost always cheaper.
- Whether the price is shown before generation. If you cannot see what a specific clip costs, you are not managing your budget.
- Whether you can switch between models. A draft on a cheap model, the final on an expensive one: this saves more than any discount.
Which model for what
So you do not have to guess, a short cheat sheet for the main video models:
- Seedance 2.0 is long dynamic scenes and a stable character, but not for real faces. Review.
- Veo 3.1 is detail, light and native sound, 1080p only. Review.
- Kling v3 is camera movement and people, and it works with real faces. Review.
- Hailuo and Wan are inexpensive alternatives. Review.
Sora 2 Pro is no longer on the list: OpenAI shut Sora down in September 2026. What to take instead: Sora was shut down.
What a minute costs on each is calculated in the article on how much a minute of AI video costs.
In short
You can generate video with AI in Russia in three ways. An international service gives you everything new but requires a VPN and a foreign card. Domestic models are available without restrictions but still fall behind in quality. A Russian aggregator gives you the same Western models for rubles without a VPN, and for most tasks it is the simplest option. When choosing, look at the set of models, the payment method and whether paid credits expire.
