Moscow Targets Streamers Over LGBTQIA+ Propaganda Claims As “Heated Rivalry” Finds A Russian Fanbase
A Moscow court has filed administrative cases tied to Russia’s LGBTQIA+ “propaganda” law against executives linked to several major streaming platforms, according to public court records cited by The Moscow Times.
The filings name services including Kinopoisk, Wink, Ivi, Amediateka, 24TV, Digital Television and Beeline TV. What’s missing is the key detail everyone would expect: the court records do not list which titles allegedly triggered the charges.
A crackdown aimed at streamers, not a single show.
This isn’t the first time these companies have been targeted. The Moscow Times reports that Kinopoisk chief executive officer (CEO) Alexander Dunayevsky and Wink head Vyacheslav Popov have each been fined at least four times in recent years over alleged “propaganda” violations, with Ivi deputy CEO Ivan Grinin also fined multiple times.
Two executives named in the latest round, 24TV CEO Vladislav Dubrov and Digital Television program director Alexei Bernat, are described as new to these accusations, with Bernat charged in a case focused on minors.
At the same time, Heated Rivalry has become a talking point in Russia for a completely different reason. The Canadian romantic sports drama, based on Rachel Reid’s Game Changers novels, is not officially available on licensed Russian platforms. Yet it has still built a large audience through unofficial channels.
That underground buzz shows up in the numbers people can see. Kinopoisk, a major Russian film database and streaming brand often compared to Rotten Tomatoes or the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), lists Heated Rivalry at 8.6 based on tens of thousands of user ratings, according to Vanity Fair and Gayety.
So what does this case actually mean for streaming in Russia?
What the law covers and what the penalties look like.
Russia first introduced its so-called “gay propaganda” law in 2013, framed as protecting children. In late 2022, the restrictions were expanded to apply to adults, too, tightening controls across media and public life.
Gayety notes that penalties can reach 400,000 rubles (about US$5,144) for individuals and 5 million rubles (about US$64,302) for organisations, depending on the offence.
In 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court escalated further by designating what it called the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organisation, even though it is not a formal group.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has described this wider campaign as an abuse of legal power. “They are flagrantly violating Russians’ rights to free expression, association and nondiscrimination,” said Hugh Williamson, HRW’s Europe and Central Asia director.
Where this leaves Heated Rivalry and viewers.
For now, the court records do not point to Heated Rivalry or any other specific title.
But the timing matters. A show that people are already finding outside official pipelines has become a high-profile example of demand colliding with censorship, and that collision is landing on the desks of streaming executives.
