How to Watch KION outside the US: VPN Guide 2026
KION turned five in April 2026 with 155 in-house productions behind it, and from a US connection almost none of it will play. The user agreement fixes the territory as the Russian Federation, and only the slice of it covered by the MTS mobile network. The catalog itself loads normally, complete with cast pages and schedules. Watching KION in the US falls apart one click later, when playback bounces to the MTS sign-in page and comes back as a 403.
The operator’s own help pages carve out an exception and say its original films and series can be played outside Russia. Our test on September 4, 2026 never got that far: without a VPN even the free original Prigovor answered with a 403. Behind the wall sits a genuine hybrid: films, original drama produced since 2021, and more than two hundred live channels including the federal networks. CyberGhost moves your IP address, picture quality reaches 4K and a single account covers five screens.
Is KION available in the US?
Best VPN for KION
Tested weekly by our team. Green: works, amber: partial, red: blocked.
| VPN Service | Price | KION | Tested | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
CyberGhostBEST | From $1.75/mo | ✓ Works | September 13 | Try it |
ExpressVPN | From $2.79/mo | ✓ Works | September 13 | Open |
NordVPN | From $2.99/mo | ✓ Works | September 14 | Open |
Surfshark | From $1.78/mo | ✓ Works | September 12 | Open |
IPVanish | From $2.19/mo | ✓ Works | September 12 | Open |
ProtonVPN | From $3.59/mo | ✓ Works | September 10 | Open |
Private Internet Access | From $1.79/mo | ✓ Works | September 12 | Open |
How to Unblock KION with a VPN
Takes about 2 minutes. Works on your phone, tablet, TV, PC, or laptop.
- Pick a VPN that holds upStart with CyberGhost. An annual plan works out at $1.75 a month and covers more devices on one login than the streaming app itself allows.Free apps tend to drop Russian routes after a few minutes, so lean on a paid trial instead.
- Look for a location in RussiaOpen the location list in the app and check whether it actually carries a Russian city, because coverage differs between providers and changes over time. Once the tunnel is up, clear your cookies, or the browser hands over your old country again.
- Sign in to KIONOpen kion.ru or the mobile app and enter a Russian mobile number. Verification goes through an SMS code on login.mts.ru, and nothing plays until that step is done.
- Set quality and profilesSwitch the player to 4K if your line can carry it, add the kids profile, and download episodes to the phone. Offline playback needs no tunnel at all.
Which countries is KION available in?
KION is only available in Russia. To access it from anywhere else, use a premium VPN.
Available in 1 country No VPN needed
Blocked in 193 countries VPN required
Show all 181 more countries
KION is blocked in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in Australia, in Canada and in New Zealand, plus in 188 more countries. To access it, use a premium VPN like CyberGhost.
Who’s behind the service?
What is KION
KION is a Russian streaming service that pairs an on-demand catalogue with live television. It arrived in 2021 as a relaunch of MTS TV and is now run by ON Media through the Moscow company OOO KION. Subscribers get films, KION original series and more than two hundred live channels, including the federal networks, in quality up to 4K on five devices at once. The interface, content and support are Russian only, sign up needs a Russian mobile number, and the terms tie the catalogue and the TV channels to Russia, with the operator naming its own originals as the one exception that plays anywhere.

Company and history
- MTS relaunched its MTS TV service, running since 2015, under the KION brand. The new platform opened with ten in-house premieres and a declared plan to pull viewers away from rival Russian streamers.
- After the Hollywood studios pulled out, Russian streaming libraries shrank for the first time. KION was among the hardest hit, second only to ivi, which lost 42 percent of its titles that year.
- The service closed 2024 with 7.6 million paying subscribers, up 53 percent year on year. That growth kept KION inside the top five of the Russian streaming market.
- The holding consolidated the management of three services, the music app MTS Music, the book app Stroki and the video catalog, into a single content cluster led by KION, aligning day-to-day operations, editorial and marketing.
- KION switched on a kids profile with 0+ and 6+ age tiers, a PIN lock and safe search. The section launched with more than 150,000 items, from cartoons to audio fairy tales.
- The parent holding renamed itself from MTS Media to ON Media, the music and book services took the streaming brand, and the combined KION TOP subscription went on sale the same day.
- At its fifth birthday event in Moscow, KION tallied 155 in-house productions over five years and announced second and third seasons of the detective series Otpechatki, alongside a Stalin project in the works.
- ON Media reported that the KION audience grew by a million year on year to 15.9 million viewers in the second quarter, while media division revenue rose 12.6 percent to 6.9 billion rubles.
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Tips & tricks you should know
5 tips from our KION testing team · Updated September 7, 2026
- The KION TOP bundle runs 399 RUB a month for video, music and books that cost 867 RUB separately, with the first two months at 99 RUB.
- KION limits itself to Russia in its own terms, so create the account on a Russian number before you travel and connect through CyberGhost from abroad.
- The service makes one exception in its own help pages: KION original films and series can be watched anywhere, while the rest of the catalogue and the TV channels stay tied to Russia.
- A single account covers five devices at once and picture quality reaches 4K, with a kids profile and downloads for offline viewing included.
- Part of the catalogue carries a Besplatno tag, but those titles still ask you to sign in, so free here does not mean no account.
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Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know before you start watching KION.
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