Moscow's wartime porn crackdown How the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has impacted Russia's adult content industry
Since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it's become nearly impossible to “stay out of politics” in Russia. Militarization has permeated every corner of society — even the most intimate spheres, like the porn industry. Just three years ago, adult videos were readily available on the Russian social media network VKontakte; now, they’re gone. Back then, the most popular Russian-speaking porn actress, Eva Elfie, was living in Russia. Today, she lives in the U.S. Journalists at Novaya Gazeta Europe recently explored how the war has reshaped Russia’s porn industry. Meduza shares an abridged translation of their reporting.
Before the full-scale invasion
Watching and storing pornography is legal under Russian law — but producing, distributing, or showing it publicly is not. This has created a strange dual reality: Russia has porn websites, media coverage of the porn industry, and recognizable porn stars, yet no one openly films or discusses porn within the country.
This paradox became especially visible after the pandemic. As platforms like OnlyFans and Pornhub became increasingly popular alternative income sources, mentions of Russian porn stars — including Eva Elfie, Luxury Girl, and Jia Lissa — surged. Many rebranded themselves as influencers, appearing on talk shows, podcasts, livestreams, and even TV series. When asked about the legality of their work, they’d simply say that they traveled abroad for shoots.
Over time, enforcement of Article 242 of Russia’s criminal code — which covers the production and trafficking of pornography — became more aggressive. In 2016, the article was amended to include drawings depicting “an adult portraying a minor.” Russia’s state censorship agency, Roskomnadzor, has since used this clause to crack down on Japanese animated porn, or hentai, across the Russian Internet.
Yet Russian law still lacks a clear definition of what constitutes “pornography” as opposed to, say, a film with explicit sex scenes. The only formal reference appears in a 2010 federal law on protecting children from "information harmful to their health and development,” which defines “pornographic content” as “realistic depictions of human genitalia, sexual intercourse, or comparable sexual acts.” With no standardized criteria, each case under Article 242 requires a panel of experts to judge the material — evaluating its explicitness, the apparent age of those depicted, the genre, and other observable factors.
As a result, enforcement has become inconsistent and often arbitrary. People have faced charges for simply reposting pornographic material on social media. But the law has also been used for political purposes.
In 2019, artist and LGBTQ+ activist Yulia Tsvetkova faced up to three years in prison on charges of distributing child pornography over illustrations she had posted in a VKontakte group. She was fully acquitted only after a court ruling in November 2022 — and left Russia soon afterward. However, in March 2023, the acquittal was overturned, and according to Tsvetkova, she was later placed on the federal wanted list.
Andrey Borovikov, the former coordinator of Alexey Navalny’s headquarters in Arkhangelsk, was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for reposting the music video for the song “Pussy” by the German band Rammstein on VKontakte.
Still, the porn industry became increasingly integrated into Russian daily life. The media highlighted Pornhub statistics about the country's viewing preferences, including high interest in hentai, cosplay, and anal sex. Porn performers appeared at public events: Luxury Girl had a booth at VK Fest, the social media platform’s annual gathering. Collaborations with mainstream entertainers became more frequent: pop star Egor Kreed shot a music video with Kristina Shcherbinina and Liya Silver; the entertainment group KlikLak released a sketch featuring five Russian porn actresses; and journalist Alexey Pivovarov produced a documentary for his YouTube channel Redaktsiya about Russians’ influence on the global porn industry.
Russia’s porn industry showed some relative success internationally as well. Yulia Romanova, born in Omsk and known professionally as Eva Elfie, ranked among the world’s top five most popular porn actresses for several years. St. Petersburg native Alexey Maetny, who uses the name Markus Dupree, won dozens of AVN and XBIZ awards — the porn world’s equivalent of the Oscars. And director Yulia Grandi, who began her career in Russia in the 2000s, now works for Vixen, producing some of the world’s most expensive adult films.
These contradictions extended to Russia’s relationship with the major platforms themselves. Pornhub and OnlyFans were never fully blocked, even as smaller porn sites like YouPorn and XNXX were banned by Roskomnadzor.
For a time, Pornhub even became somewhat trendy in Russia. From 2017 to 2022, it had an official representative in the country. The site featured ads for Tinkoff’s online bank, Tochka, and the popular TV channel Pyatnitsa. Cinemas screened the comedy movie Deeper! as part of a joint campaign with Pornhub. Russian users could even log in using their VKontakte accounts — a practice cybersecurity experts criticized, since it gave the porn site access to users’ personal data, including phone numbers and, by extension, information linked to their passports. In 2018, a data leak involving VK-linked Pornhub accounts briefly made headlines before being quietly resolved.
The same contradictions applied to VKontakte itself — at least before the full-scale war. For years, the platform where people could face prison for posting porn was also one of Russia’s largest de facto porn archives. Disabling the “Safe Search” filter in VK’s video section gave users access to a vast trove of explicit content. VK became a hub not only for Russians, but also for users in neighboring countries. Moderators generally only removed videos that explicitly violated Russia's vague laws, which allowed hundreds of porn pages to thrive on the site. But even that era eventually came to an end.
After the full-scale invasion
Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the Russian authorities have become increasingly involved in citizens’ private lives. In early 2024, a scandal erupted over an “almost naked party” hosted by influencer Anastasia Ivleyeva. In its aftermath, many public figures toned down their appearances and stopped speaking openly about their sex lives. Soon after, the government passed a sweeping law banning all LGBTQ+ content. Bookstores pulled titles about sexual freedom, streaming platforms began censoring same-sex scenes in shows and films, and crackdowns followed: raids on clubs, public pressure against sex parties, and even a manhunt in Dagestan for a gay porn director.
The crackdown extended to webcam studios — a business that had grown rapidly in Russia's regions during the COVID-19 pandemic, as people looked for ways to earn extra money. In 2022, authorities amended Criminal Code Article 242, which had previously defined the distribution of pornography as occurring “through mass media and the Internet.” They removed the phrase “through mass media," meaning that anything distributed online — whether a livestream on a cam site, a page on OnlyFans, or a video on PornHub — could now be prosecuted as illegal pornography. This triggered a wave of raids on webcam and porn studios across Russia — in Omsk, Tver, Yekaterinburg, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, Perm, and in franchise networks spanning several regions.
Most sex workers and porn actors in Russia chose to stay silent. But there were exceptions. Eva Elfie, the most popular Russian-speaking porn actress, distanced herself from the Russian government and moved to the U.S., where she continued her career as a blogger and streamer. In contrast, the popular porn streamer Luxury Girl remained in Russia, appearing on VK shows, collaborating with gambling companies, and building a business in St. Petersburg.
Lesser-known models continued working with American and European studios. Companies like Mofos, Legal Porn, NRX, and Teen Mega World commissioned videos or paid for performers to travel to Serbia — since Hungary and the Czech Republic, key centers for porn production, had made it harder for Russians to get visas. To receive payments, sex workers had to either obtain foreign documents to open bank accounts and pay taxes abroad, get cards from neighboring countries connected to international payment systems, or learn to accept crypto payments.
“Professional porn shoots are rare [in Belgrade], but sometimes teams come for a few weeks — since it’s so difficult for models to get Schengen visas these days, especially if they’ve never been to the E.U.,” said Stefan Cardo, founder of an OnlyFans agency, in an interview with Verstka Media.
In 2022, many Russian OnlyFans models figured out how to obtain foreign documents. One of OnlyFans’s co-founders, Leonid Radvinsky, was born in Odesa and, after the full-scale invasion, donated $5 million to Ukrainian charities. Soon after, OnlyFans restricted payouts to users in Russia and Belarus, and Russian subscribers were cut off from the platform. To get around the ban, many models and agencies scrambled to secure residence permits in Turkey, Portugal, Poland, and other countries.
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Despite the restraints, Pornhub and OnlyFans have remained the dominant platforms for adult content in Russia. Alternatives like Fansly, Boosty, and Chaturbate offered similar features but couldn’t match their audience reach or revenue. Even now, most new names emerge on these established platforms. In 2024, Sweetie Fox, a model from Yekaterinburg, became Pornhub’s most popular performer and appeared on the cover of AVN, the adult industry’s leading magazine. Around the same time, Ukrainian media regularly featured OnlyFans model Yulia Seniuk (Josephine Jackson), who has raised funds and released erotic photos in support of the Ukrainian military.
Legal ways to watch and pay for porn have also completely disappeared in Russia. Before the war, users could pay for Pornhub Premium, win access through VKontakte contests, subscribe to OnlyFans or even directly to studios through their websites, and send tips to models during webcam streams. After the war began, those options vanished — far fewer people now have access to foreign bank cards.
VKontakte stopped functioning as Russia’s de facto porn library after being gradually restructured to resemble YouTube. Under government-linked management, the platform began systematically removing all 18+ content.
First, VK banned sharing or embedding links to adult videos. Then it began deleting entire porn pages. Eventually, it removed the “Safe Search” toggle that had once allowed users to access porn clips and full-length films. For a while, users could still find content by using keywords or searching for performers’ names — but even that became difficult. Now, users need a verified account to open links, and must confirm their age three separate times to view adult content.
No alternative has emerged for the millions of Russians who consume porn. Instead, audiences have adapted, learning to find Pornhub clips and leaked OnlyFans content in private Telegram channels, on banned pirate sites, and via torrents. As the mainstream audience dropped off, traditional advertisers pulled out of the adult market, making space for more risk-tolerant brands. Today, porn videos often include ads for gambling services, online casinos, and even drugstores. Some Pornhub clips still feature performers promoting illegal substances, placing bets on camera, or playing roulette before having sex. A source connected to the underground ad market confirmed to Novaya Gazeta Europe that several models had indeed been paid for these kinds of product placements.
There are some indications that the Russian authorities may be preparing to launch their own government-approved platforms for adult films. As early as 2023, online streaming platforms — including state-run ones like Premier, More, and Wink — began hosting erotica and softcore porn. These productions avoid explicit visuals, featuring no close-ups of genitals or orgasms, similar to what broadcast TV used to air late at night. As of the end of 2024, journalists at Sever.Realii had identified at least 145 distribution licenses issued by Russia's Culture Ministry for erotic films on streaming platforms. Still, even softcore content technically falls under Article 242 of the Criminal Code — and since Russian streamers are actively distributing it, the legal questions remain unresolved.
Original story by Anton Pushkarev for Novaya Gazeta Europe