YouTube has removed about 600 videos advertising the Russian drone manufacturer "Alabuga"
The video platform YouTube has confirmed the removal of approximately 600 videos promoting the Russian “Alabuga” College, which trains personnel for the production of military drones.
The decision was made following a request from the Ukrainian side.
“This week, YouTube officially confirmed that, at our request, approximately 600 videos promoting ‘Alabuga’ and using content to recruit workers for the plant were removed. The videos were posted on hundreds of channels with over 500 million subscribers (in total),” the foreign minister noted.
Sybiga emphasized that the sanctioned Russian drone manufacturer “Alabuga” should not be allowed to promote its activities on international streaming platforms.
“The Russian company ‘Alabuga,’ which manufactures drones and is subject to sanctions, has no place on global streaming platforms,” the minister emphasized.
The head of Ukrainian diplomacy welcomed YouTube’s decision and thanked Google for its cooperation. He also specifically acknowledged the contributions of blogger JesusAVGN (Alexei Gubanov), journalist Michael Naki, Nadiya Tolokonnikova, as well as John Caldwell and Christian Carino, who helped expose the network promoting the Russian company.
Sybiga also expressed special gratitude to the Cyber Department of the Security Service of Ukraine.
The minister stated that the next step will be to work on imposing sanctions against bloggers who, for a fee, promoted a sanctioned weapons manufacturer.
“Deliberately promoting a factory that produces drones that kill Ukrainians is not a content decision. It has consequences. We call on all other major platforms to act with the same resolve. Recruitment efforts are still active simultaneously across many services. We are ready to cooperate with any platform to stop the killings of Ukrainian civilians,” stated Andriy Sibiga.
This was reported by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiga.
Prior to this, the video platform YouTube began mass-removing videos advertising the Russian college “Alabuga Polytech,” which is linked to the production of drones for the Russian military. According to blogger Oleksiy Gubanov, at least 61 videos have already been removed from the platform.
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