Netflix to halt production, acquisition in Russia

Netflix has announced it will no longer produce shows in Russia or acquire Russian programming.

On Feb. 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an attempt to reclaim the former member of the Soviet bloc as a territory. Reaction from the international community was swift, with Switzerland promising that its banks would freeze Russian assets, President Joe Biden condemning Russia’s Vladimir Putin in his State of the Union address, and European countries joining the United States in imposing economic sanctions.

The production ban includes Anna K, which would have starred Svetlana Khodchenkova in a modern retelling of Tolstoy’s classic novel Anna Karenina. Other impacted series include a Russian original detective series called Zato, but not another unnamed show, which is one day away from completion.

This comes after Netflix already announced plans to defy a Russian law that went into effect on March 1, requiring all media services with more than 100,000 users to carry a Russian propaganda channel. According to a report in Deadline, less than one million of the streamer’s 222 million subscribers are currently based in Russia, meaning that should the service be banned in the country, it shouldn’t affect their bottom line too badly.

Russian people, however, would longer be able to look forward to the fourth season of Netflix original series Stranger Things, or the forthcoming Netflix original movie, Rescued by Ruby, starring Grant Gustin as a state trooper who aspires to join a K-9 search & rescue team and turns out to be the one rescued by a dog.