After first suspending service and closing its office in Russia amid the country's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Spotify has now removed the music of pro-war Russian artists from the platform.
The band Lyube, as well as singers Grigory Leps, Oleg Gazmanov, Shaman and Polina Gagarina, are among the musicians affected by the takedowns, as first reported by the Rodney Zvuk Telegram channel.
"Platform Rules clearly state that we take action when we identify content which explicitly violates our content policies or local laws," a spokesperson for Spotify explained to the Moscow Times in an email. "Upon review, these artists met the threshold for removal."
Back in 2017, the streaming giant began cracking down on hateful content, removing the music of racist "hate bands" from the platform. Within the next year, though, Spotify walked back its hateful conduct policy — which had resulted in the removal of songs by XXXTentacion and R. Kelly from editorial playlists — after critics accused it of disproportionately affecting Black artists.
While Spotify did not cite exactly which of their content policies the Russian artists who have been vocal in their support of the war on Ukraine violated, several of those musicians — including Lyube, Leps and Gazmanov — have been under EU sanctions, which limit travel and freeze assets, since Russia launched the invasion.
Shaman and Polina Gagarina were among 69 people and 47 legal entities added to the EU sanctions list last week, with the former having allegedly "repeatedly participated in Kremlin-organized concerts, including the Kremlin's anniversary event for that war, and given concerts in the illegally occupied regions of Ukraine." Gagarina reportedly "generated significant revenue" from state-sponsored events, including those held in celebration of the annexation of Ukrainian regions.