But the most dramatic escalation has been the targeting of street musicians. In October 2025, three members of the street band were arrested and jailed for publicly performing a banned anti-war song. The song, "Cooperative Swan Lake," had been labeled "extremist" by a St. Petersburg court in May 2025 because it contained "hostile, hateful attitudes towards people" and calls for "violent changes". The arrests did not silence the song; they amplified it. Hundreds of young Russians gathered in St. Petersburg's Palace Square for an unsanctioned mass sing-along of the same banned anthem, defiantly challenging the state's censorship in a powerful show of civil disobedience.
Beginning in July 2024, Russian authorities began artificially slowing YouTube playback speeds, a process experts called “targeted throttling”. By December 2024, YouTube traffic in Russia had dropped to 20 percent of normal levels, and experts declared the platform . The official rationale was that Google had failed to delete materials deemed “extremist” or “discrediting the Russian army”. A 2025 law also criminalised the distribution of information about how to bypass internet blocks — including VPN tools. banned uncensored uncut music videos russia verified
The constant threat of bans is pushing artists to move away from sensitive topics, resulting in a more homogenous cultural scene. But the most dramatic escalation has been the
Face became a foreign agent. His video "Brat" shows him burning a Russian passport while standing on a balcony in Miami. The uncensored uncut version contains unblurred passport numbers and a direct middle finger to the FSB at the 2:18 mark. The "clean" version cuts to black. Petersburg court in May 2025 because it contained
When VK deleted Oxxxymiron’s "Oyda" in March 2022, the uncut version was uploaded to IPFS within four hours. As of this writing, that original file has been accessed 2.4 million times. It is impossible to delete.