Activists have formed lists of Russian bloggers who were promoting Alabuga, a special economic zone in Tatarstan where mass production of attack UAVs is being established. Due to massive user complaints indicating that Alabuga is under Western sanctions, YouTube administration has started the first blockings after Twitch.
Activists have formed lists of Russian bloggers who were promoting Alabuga, a special economic zone in Tatarstan where mass production of attack UAVs is being established. Due to massive user complaints indicating that Alabuga is under Western sanctions, YouTube administration has started the first blockings after Twitch.
This was reported by Ukrainian esports commentator and analyst Oleksandr «Petr1k» Petryk on the social network X (Twitter). According to him, after mass bans of streamers on Twitch, concerned users began a systematic check of the Russian segment of YouTube.
«YouTube is not much different from Twitch and cannot ignore the fact that a sanctioned organization is being advertised on their platform. Therefore, the bans are already starting little by little. The fear in the eyes of the Russians, stained by the advertising of the murder factory, is forcing them to urgently clean up their channels,» said Oleksandr Petryk.
He added links to several lists of Russian bloggers who were advertising for Alabuga. One of the largest contains about 500 content creators, whose combined audience exceeds 500 million subscribers.
The description of the list emphasizes that the videos create a false impression of the activities of «Alabuga» as exclusively educational or technological initiatives. It is noted that the bloggers who placed the ads, knowingly or unknowingly, contribute to the militarization of education and the justification of human rights violations.
Among those on the list are YouTubers with large audiences. For example, blogger HiMan (about 19.5 million subscribers) published a report about the college three years ago, and this video is still available without any changes.
Also on the list is Luhansk blogger Kreosan, known for his dangerous video experiments with electricity, high voltage, and explosive substances.
The author of one of the lists told Russian journalists that he is trying to record all advertising integrations of Alabuga Polytech published since 2022. For verification, they use:
saved copies of pages via WebArchive;
analysis of subtitles where advertising integration is directly mentioned;
indirect signs, such as user comments, if the blogger managed to cut a fragment.
X (Twitter) users also discovered the use of unified traffic tracking systems by advertising clients. They indicated that advertisers provided YouTube bloggers and Twitch streamers with short links in the same format. The common short link template makes it easy to identify posts and integrations by simply looking for mentions of specific domains and identifiers in the video descriptions.
The legal basis for removing the content is the fact that JSC «SEZ PPT „Alabuga“» and its related structures are under strict international sanctions:
USA: In February 2024, the US Department of the Treasury (OFAC) added Alabuga to the sanctions list for cooperating with Iran in the production of Geran-2 drones (Shahed analogues). Subsidiaries Alabuga Development, Alabuga-Volokno, and Albatross were also subject to restrictions.
European Union: The EU imposed sanctions on the zone back in December 2023. Under the terms of the 19th sanctions package, adopted later, European companies were given a deadline of January 25, 2026, to completely cease any operations in the territory of this SEZ.
United Kingdom: In addition to freezing assets, personal sanctions were imposed against the zone’s leadership in April 2025.
Advertising such objects on Western platforms directly violates compliance rules and terms of service, which allows activists to demand the removal of the videos.
This video is promoting and advertising «Alabuga Polytechnic» (Alabuga Special Economic Zone), an entity currently under US, EU, and UK sanctions for its direct involvement in manufacturing military drones for the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine. Advertising a sanctioned military-linked entity violates Terms of Service regarding illegal content and global compliance laws. Please investigate and remove this content to comply with international sanctions regulations
Twitch has previously blocked a number of popular Russian streamers for similar violations. Some content creators have already begun to promptly remove ads from their videos, trying to avoid sanctions from Western platforms.
Alabuga Polytechnic College is located in a special economic zone in Tatarstan. The institution actively recruits foreign students, including from Kazakhstan, as «trainees» to assemble drones. These drones are then used to attack civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
A recent study revealed a new, massive advertising campaign to recruit young people. Journalists obtained an archive of nearly 6.5 GB of promotional videos in which underage students openly talk about working in drone manufacturing.
