'Masha and the Bear': Ukraine sanctions Russian cartoon

Ukrainian Culture Minister Tetyana Berezhna on Friday said Kyiv had imposed sanctions on the "producers and distributors" of the Russian children's cartoon series "Masha and the Bear," or "Masha i Medved" in the original language.

The step will enable Kyiv to seek to remove and demonentize the series on websites like YouTube or streaming services like Netflix in the country.

The cartoon about a mischievous young girl's unlikely friendship and adventures with a retired circus bear, loosely based on a Russian oral fairytale of the same name, launched in 2009 and quickly became one of Russia 's most successful televisual exports.

"Ukraine has imposed sanctions against the producers and distributors of the Russian animated series Masha and the Bear," Berezhna said on social media. "This creates legal grounds to block the content in Ukraine and engage international platforms to restrict its monetization and distribution."

The show has also faced criticism from allies of Ukraine like Estonia and the UK for allegedly painting Russia in a positive light or for military or Soviet symbols sometimes appearing in the show.

"Russian propaganda has no place on children's screens — in Ukraine or anywhere in the world," Berezhna said.

In further comments on Facebook, Berezhna said the Ukrainian language channel for the show had 800 million views in 2025 alone. The Ukrainian language channel currently has roughly 18 million subscribers.

Worldwide, as of June 2026, the show had more than 54 billion combined views on YouTube, making it one of the 50 most popular feeds on the entire site.