The music service Spotify has deleted the pages of several Russian musicians openly supportive of President Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, according to an independent Russian media report on Thursday.
The artists removed from the world’s largest music streaming platform include Shaman, Chicherina, Polina Gagarina, Grigory Leps, Oleg Gazmanov, and a rock group called Lyube.
The European Union (EU) sanctioned Gagarina, 37, along with 68 other individuals, in June for supporting Putin’s war.
The EU cited Gagarina, a breakout star at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2015, for performing at a Moscow political rally in March to support the war and Russia’s illegal 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Canada slapped sanctions on Gagarina in 2023 for spreading Russian propaganda. Several of her concerts were canceled in the wake of her appearance at the pro-Putin political rally in March.
The EU sanctioned Shaman, a 32-year-old singer whose real name is Yaroslav Yuryevich Dronov, on Monday because he “repeatedly participated in Kremlin-organized concerts, including the Kremlin’s anniversary event for [the Ukraine] war, and given concerts in the illegally occupied regions of Ukraine.”
The EU noted that Shaman has also performed “as part of troop entertainment events for the Russian Armed Forces.”
The EU sanctioned Leps, Gazmanov, and the band Lyube in 2022 for “actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.”
Spotify is no longer available in Russia, having suspended operations there in March 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. Spotify also removed its content from Russian state media outlets.
The company cited Putin’s authoritarian media laws, which threaten anyone who disparages the Russian military with up to 15 years in prison, as the main reason it could no longer do business in Russia.
“Unfortunately, recently enacted legislation further restricting access to information, eliminating free expression, and criminalizing certain types of news puts the safety of Spotify’s employees and possibly even our listeners at risk,” the company said.
Spotify told the Moscow Times on Thursday that content from all of the Russian artists it removed “met the threshold” for content that “explicitly violates our content policies or local laws.”
The streaming service took note of speculation in Russian media that the pages of the artists in question were hacked and clarified that they were deliberately removed on the instructions of Spotify management.
The Moscow Times pointed out that all of the banned Putin-supporting artists can still be found, at least for the moment, on platforms such as Apple Music and YouTube.
Spotify continues to host other artists whose conduct is reprehensible or legally questionable such as Diddy, who was caught on video beating his girlfriend; R. Kelly, who was convicted of racketeering and sexually abusing his young fans; and VaVa, a popular female Chinese rap artist who openly supports the genocidal tyranny in Beijing.