Russian streaming platform censors foreign shows alongside new book bans and school materials

An investigation by Mediazona revealed that Russian streaming service Amediateka has censored nearly half of its licensed foreign television series. The study found over 7,300 cut fragments totaling more than 75 hours of removed footage across roughly 200 shows. Censored topics included non-traditional relationships, substance abuse, suicide, and incest, in some cases removing critical plotlines from popular series such as Game of Thrones.

Concurrently, a Russian court banned the romance novel Heated Rivalry, which features a love story between male hockey players, citing laws against non-traditional sexual propaganda. In education, secondary schools in Novosibirsk received new instructional materials promoting military service in Ukraine as an honorable duty while portraying Western cultural influences negatively.

Sources: Mediazona, NEXTA, The Insider, Verstka.