By Murad Rakhimov | 2025-08-28

Come March 2026, a single government order could erase a movie from Russian theaters, TV and streaming platforms -- part of a new law giving the Kremlin sweeping power to block any movie it says undermines "traditional values."

President Vladimir Putin signed the measure July 31. It allows the state to deny or revoke distribution licenses for movies that clash with official ideology.

The law amends Russia's statutes on information and on state support for cinematography, further tightening control over art and entertainment.

The changes

The amendments take effect March 1, 2026. From then, the Culture Ministry can amend or cancel distribution licenses without a copyright holder's appeal, a power it previously lacked. A distribution license allows films to be screened in theaters, on television and online and sets age restrictions.

The law requires theaters, internet services and social networks to block movies deemed to contradict "traditional Russian spiritual and moral values."

Authorities have identified 17 such values, including patriotism, civic duty, service to the motherland, responsibility for its fate, high moral ideals, strong families, productive labor and the primacy of the spiritual over the material.

The changes could hit theaters hard. Revenue is rising only because of higher ticket prices, while sales keep falling -- 123.7 million RUB ($1.34 million) in 2024, down from 126.1 million ($1.36 million) in 2023.

Meanwhile, the number of people choosing to watch movies at home is rising each year. In 2024, subscriptions to Russian online streaming platforms grew 44%, from 36.7 million to 53 million.

Viewers have more options, including films critical of the government, and can watch on their own schedule. The Internet Video Association estimates that 90% of content on streaming platforms lacks official distribution licenses.

The new law will require online platforms with more than 100,000 daily users in Russia to block access to such content within 24 hours of a demand from Roskomnadzor, the state media regulator.

Social media companies will also be required to search for and remove material deemed to discredit "traditional values."

Enforcing 'values'

Olga Kazakova, chair of the State Duma's culture committee, told TASS in August that the law applies to both new and older movies. The Culture Ministry can now reconsider licenses if "a new sensibility" or prohibition emerges.

"We have now empowered the Ministry of Culture to render an additional opinion -- for example, if a new sensibility about a topic has emerged or a new prohibition has taken effect, but the movie was released earlier," Kazakova said.

According to her, the new regulations do not prohibit comedies or the portrayal of challenging life situations such as divorce or single parenthood.

"This is a movie. It's a creative product. But its goal should not be to serve as propaganda for contradicting our values. That shouldn't be ingrained in the meaning of the movie," she said.

As part of Russia's drive to enforce "traditional values," promoting "LGBT or child-free lifestyles" can draw fines of up to 5 million RUB (about $62,100).

In July, Mikhail Shvydkoy, the president's special envoy for international cultural cooperation, proposed reviving formal state censorship.

"It seems as if it would be much more honest to return to censorship, which would be done by professionals, not bureaucrats from different agencies," he wrote in an opinion piece in Rossiiskaya Gazeta. "Advance censorship protects creators from the punitive, since discussing and adjusting a work before it is released could save its life."

Alisher Ilkhamov, director of the London-based Central Asia Due Diligence, called the law another step toward stricter censorship of art.

He told Kontur it revives Soviet-style controls that enforced a single ideology.

In the Soviet era, filmmaking faced strict party censorship. Many films were downgraded to limited release, while the most "anti-Soviet" works were shelved in archives and never shown publicly until the late 1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika reforms eased state controls.

While the current methods echo the Soviet past, the ideology has shifted. Instead of communism, today's version promotes social conservatism rooted in patriarchy, religion and the rejection of liberal views on gender, sex and women's rights.

Ilkhamov noted that conservative ideology exists in the West but competes with other views in a pluralistic system. In Russia, the state dictates which ideologies are acceptable and suppresses the rest.

Vague laws

Sabokhat Rakhmonova, a journalist and documentary filmmaker from Tashkent, said the phrase "discrediting of spiritual and moral values" is vague and open to broad interpretation.

She told Kontur that amid the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin is using such laws to restrict free expression in the name of protecting values. Without clear criteria, any work straying from the official line risks a ban, stifling creative freedom and binding film to the state's ideology.

Rakhmonova said the law marks another step toward total control of culture, which the state has long treated as an ideological battlefield. The war in Ukraine has accelerated efforts to harness film, literature and theater for the Kremlin's agenda.

In 2022, the Culture Ministry set priorities for Russian cinema that included promoting military service, portraying "the degradation of Europe," preserving traditional values and praising the heroism of soldiers in the so-called "special military operation."

Russian human rights activist and blogger Alexander Kim told Kontur that the revised law turns film distribution into a tool of censorship. He argued the measures justify the war effort while suppressing free speech and artistic expression under the guise of defending "traditional values."

Kim added that the law enforces a narrow, state-approved version of culture, while alternative voices remain "overshadowed and inconspicuous." He warned that such measures extend the state's ideological grip beyond the arts, likening them to a mandatory mobile app for migrants that enforces daily surveillance and compliance.