According to stereogum.com, in 2022 Spotify had announced that they would be fully suspending their service in Russia due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine. And now, the music streaming service is cracking down on the songs and artist profiles of pro-war Russian artists and in some cases, removing their music entirely from the platform. The Moscow Times  has reported that the Russian artists affected by Spotify’s latest moves include the band Lyube, singers Grigory Leps, Oleg Gazmanov, Polina Gagarina, Shaman, and others.

In the following statement, Spotify further clarifies on why they chose to remove Russian artists from their platform: “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.”

Although Spotify did not exactly mention which content violated their policies, a few of the affected artists have been under EU sanctions since the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Gagarina and Shaman, however, appeared on Brussels’s most recent sanctions package last week. The listing allegedly says 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.” While Gagarina allegedly “generated significant revenue” from state sponsored events celebrating annexation of Ukranian regions under Moscow’s partial control.