Let’s say you decided to become a writer or musician in Russia in 2026. If you hope that your book or album will be accepted by a publisher or label for release, distribution and promotion, the result of your creative work must meet certain criteria.

Taking into account the new laws that came into force on March 1, you should not mention drugs in any form, any relationships other than heterosexual ones, or anything that might discredit “traditional values” or — even more so — the Russian army.

You should not mention “foreign agents” or “undesirable organizations,” question the state’s version of the history of World War II or equate the U.S.S.R. with the Third Reich, discuss terrorism or suicide, insult representatives of the authorities or religious feelings, or, in principle, touch on the political situation in modern Russia in any way — even if you are a fanatical supporter of President Vladimir Putin’s regime, it won’t save you.

I would very much like the above to be an exaggeration or a dramatization. But in practice, things are even worse. Firstly, because there are many lesser-known prohibitions, your potential publisher’s or label’s lawyers are dealing with the same smoke and mirrors as you are. It is no coincidence that the music industry’s immediate reaction to the new law banning drug propaganda on the internet was the mass editing of songs on streaming platforms or their removal altogether.

“Justification by the genre” is a boundless territory for interpretation, just like “traditional values,” “justification of terrorism” and other abstract repressive categories from Russian legislation. Clearly, the wording of censorship laws results in confused lawyers recommending that equally confused publishers err on the side of caution. And so intimidated publishers, unwilling to pay huge fines or face imprisonment, rush in panic to pre-censor their portfolios and approach future collaborations with extreme caution.

Amid this panic, it is important to acknowledge that this is not merely a matter of temporary inconveniences or concessions, but about the systematic destruction of modern Russian pop culture as we have known it since the early 1990s.

What I Learned Speaking Face to Face with a Fellow Political Prisoner and........

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