Russian streaming service cuts over 75 hours of foreign series amid censorship drive

Russian online streaming service Amediateka has censored roughly half of its foreign television series, according to an investigation by Mediazona. The platform removed over 7,300 fragments—exceeding 75 total hours of footage—from approximately 200 titles. Excised content includes scenes depicting non-traditional sexual relationships, drug use, suicide, and incest, altering key plotlines in major releases such as Game of Thrones.

Concurrently, a Russian court banned the romance novel Heated Rivalry over its depiction of a male romance between hockey players. In Novosibirsk, secondary schools received supplementary textbooks on patriotic education that present military service in Ukraine as an honorable duty while sharply denouncing Western cultural influences and non-traditional relationships.

Sources: Mediazona, NEXTA, The Insider, Verstka.