Spotify removes Russian artists who support Ukraine war

Spotify has begun to remove Russian artists who are in support of the war in Ukraine from the streaming platform.

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Back in 2022, Spotify shuttered its Moscow office in response to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Confirming its Moscow office would be closed “indefinitely”, the streaming platform said they were “providing individual support to our personnel” in Moscow, as well as their “global community of Ukrainian employees”.

They then suspended their services in the country after Russia introduced a new legislation that makes it illegal to report any event that could discredit the Russian military.

“Spotify has continued to believe that it’s critically important to try to keep our service operational in Russia to provide trusted, independent news and information from the region,” the company said in a statement.

Now, the streaming platform has begun to take down the profiles of pro-war Russian artists – removing their music entirely.

As reported by The Moscow Times, artists such as the band Lyube, Grigory Leps, Oleg Gazmanov, Polina Gagarina, and Shaman, among others have been affected by Spotify’s choice to pull pro-war Russian artists from their services.

In a statement sent to the publication, Spotify said: “Platform Rules clearly state that we take action when we identify content which explicitly violates our content policies or local laws. Upon review, these artists met the threshold for removal.”

The streamer did not go on to specify exactly which content violated their policies. A handful of the artists who were affected by the streamer’s decision to pull their catalogue form the platform have been under EU sanctions since the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Gagarina and Shaman recently appeared on Brussels’ sanctions package last week (Per Stereogum) with the listing reading Shaman “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.”

Whereas Gagarina allegedly “generated significant revenue” from state-sponsored events which celebrated the annexation of Ukranian regions under Moscow’s partial control.

In other Spotify news, Deadmau5 recently spoke out against the platform following comments made by the CEO Daniel Ek last month about the cost of “creating content”.

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