How Ukraine war sanctions are hitting Russian OnlyFans models and platform workers too

Anna Mukydza first noticed something was wrong with her OnlyFans account when the Russian adult content creator received a message from a subscriber telling her he wasn't able to pay.

"People could not renew their subscription, and once it was time to renew it was automatically rejected and people were unsubscribed," she told Euronews Next.

Mukydza is one of many OnlyFans creators in Russia and Belarus whose accounts were suspended in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Like many others, she uses the platform to produce and sell adult content, which she says accounts for up to 40 per cent of her income.

A few days later, her account was back. But it came at a cost: Mukydza estimates she lost around a quarter of her subscribers and around €1,000 in sales.

"The biggest question for me is that they do not ban Russian users, they only ban Russian creators," she said.

"So do they think that government leaders have OnlyFans and post their dick pics and monetise it? Or is it for Russian leaders, [so] that they can't see my nudes anymore?"

In a statement, OnlyFans said it had restored its Russian creators' accounts. The platform said the hiatus came after the country's financial institutions were hit by sanctions that limited their ability to process international transactions.

"We were not terminating or suspending any creator accounts based on the creator’s location, and we are doing everything we can to support our community," the company said.

But after OnlyFans provided its statement to Euronews Next, another creator, Sophia*, sent screenshots from the OnlyFans app appearing to show that her Russian ID was rejected by its verification process due to being from "a prohibited country or state".

Unable to verify her identity,