Video featuring drag performance disappears from popular Russian band’s official YouTube channel

The video to a 2000s hit song featuring a drag artist has been removed from the official YouTube channel of popular Russian band Ruki Vverkh!, the VIP-RADAR Telegram channel reported on Wednesday.

Artist Anatoly Yevdokimov is seen putting on make-up and a wig and carrying out a drag performance in a night club setting in the video to the 2002 pop song On Tebya Tseluet (“He Kisses You”).

Although the video could have come under scrutiny following the Russian Supreme Court’s outlawing the non-existent “international LGBT movement” as extremist in November 2023, independent media outlet IStories pointed out on Wednesday that the video does not feature on any Russian government list of “prohibited materials”.

The video can still be found on YouTube, though not on the official Ruki Vverkh! account, suggesting the group has chosen to take the video down itself. Ruki Vverkh! has not yet commented publicly on why the video has been taken down.

IStories was able to establish using web archive data that the video was still available on the Ruki Vverkh! YouTube channel until at least 5 June, at which point it had been viewed approximately 71 million times.

Ruki Vverkh!, which translates as Hands Up!, was originally a pop duo consisting of lead singer Sergey Zhukov and fellow artist Alexey Potekhin that achieved extraordinary success across Russia in the late 1990s and early 2000s with light-hearted pop songs. Zhukov, who has publicly stated his support for the war in Ukraine, has continued to use the name for his solo works since the duo disbanded in 2006.

In 2019, music journalist Oleg Karmunin reported that Zhukov had said that he was not involved in making the video and was unhappy with it being released.