April 30, 2026

Twitch Says No to Russian Drones


Twitch Says No to Russian Drones
Twitch sign.
Daniel Benavides from Austin, TX. Wikimedia Commons.

On April 25, the streaming platform Twitch prohibited the retransmission of an event that recruited viewers into making drones for Russia's war in Ukraine: a Counter-Strike 2 tournament, hosted by Alabuga Polytechnic University, to encourage students to build unmanned aerial vehicles.

Blogger JesusAVGN (Alexander Gubanov) broke the news that Twitch had temporarily banned 15 accounts belonging to Russian streamers for broadcasting Alabuga Polytech's gaming championship. Some of Russia's biggest names in the streaming world have had their accounts suspended, including Poka (Kirill Starovoytov), Pch3lk1n (Alexey Pchelkin), and fandercs (Ilya Bagreev). Each of these streamers has over 500,000 subscribers.

According to the sports publication Chempionat, Twitch placed a thirty-day ban on the accounts due to complaints from users, who pointed out that Alabuga Polytechnic is under European Union and United States sanctions. Per the U.S. company's policy, it cannot host transmissions from banned entities. 

The university, in Tatarstan, is notorious for employing underage students to build Iranian Shahed drones. The institution has also been accused of exploitation, with students saying they went days "without sleeping and practically without eating." 

Chempionat reported that Twitch's moderation system initially did not respond to complaints. However, Alabuga Polytechnic's channel was suspended after a few hours. By 1 a.m. Moscow time, the streaming platform issued temporary bans to the streamers who retransmitted the event. Twitch is also considering a permanent ban on the Russian channels.

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