Netflix will paralyze all its content production and acquisition activity in Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine.
The company had four original Russian-language projects in the works, including the long-awaited “Anna K” series, based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina,” and “Zato,” a production set in the fall of the Soviet Union.
According to internal Netflix sources, quoted by Variety magazine, the platform is “evaluating the impact of current events.”
Earlier this week, the television giant announced that it will not comply with Russia’s new audiovisual law, which would force the platform to include twenty public channels in order to operate in the country.
The legislation, which was scheduled to take effect on March 1, required Netflix and other audiovisual services to broadcast content from Kremlin-affiliated outlets such as Channel One, the NTV entertainment network and the Orthodox Church Channel.
Netflix launched its local service in Russian a little over a year ago and it barely has 1 million subscribers in that country, a tiny percentage of the more than 222 million subscribers it has worldwide.
Even so, the platform is part of the list of “audiovisual services” drawn up by the Russian media regulator, Roskomnadzor, and which includes all platforms or channels with more than 100,000 viewers, all of which are required to comply with the new standard.
A significant number of companies in the world of technology and entertainment – mostly based in California (USA) – are responding in a similar way to the war in Ukraine.
The studios of The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures will not release their new films in Russia.
The technological Meta announced that it will restrict access to the RT chain and the Sputnik agency, media affiliated with the Russian Government, on its social networks – which include Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – at the request of the European Union (EU).
Also Twitter, another American social network, announced on Monday that it will add a warning to messages that share links and news from media controlled by the Kremlin, of which it will also try to reduce its circulation on the platform.