Zelensky, Zuckerberg, pro‑lifers, a trans journalist, and a gay person with a Bible. How Russia is censoring the Axios/HBO documentary

The HBO documentary series Axios ran for four seasons and 53 episodes between 2018 and 2021. Russian audiences, however, can only access 49 of them. Four complete episodes were deleted from the catalogues of Amediateka, the official Russian distributor of HBO content.

Overall, our analysis reveals over three and a half hours of censorship in the show, with almost half of the censored material (49%, or 107 minutes) related to LGBTQ+ topics, which is hardly surprising. Since late 2023, the non-existent “international LGBT social movement” has been outlawed in Russia as an “extremist organisation,” making fines for the so-called “LGBT propaganda” routine. Consequently, films, books, and television shows are now routinely redacted to remove any such references.

The case of Axios is unique because it is a current affairs documentary. Censors at Amediateka have cut fragments and entire interviews with world leaders, who, for example, criticise Russia or Vladimir Putin personally, even though these same quotes are often selectively reported by Russia’s own propaganda.

Political topics, including any mention of organisations deemed “extremist” like Meta, account for 44% (95 minutes) of the total cuts.

Here are the most interesting examples of censorship in Axios.

Politics: Zelensky and the Russian threat

In 2021, the fourth season of Axios kicked off with an episode which contained a 20-minute interview with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

While a significant part of this conversation focused on American politics, including Donald Trump’s infamous 2019 phone call to Zelensky, January 6 events, and the new Biden administration, the Ukrainian president also spoke at length about European security, the role of the U.S. in global politics, Ukraine’s determination to join NATO, and the looming threat of a major war. Of course, Amediateka censors didn’t even try to redact the interview and simply deleted the entire episode.

Other examples of “anti-Russian” content removed from the series include:

— A segment in which the former US secretary of defence and CIA director Leon Panetta discusses Russia as a global threat: “Putin smells weakness. He smells weakness on the part of the United States, and that’s why he’s taken the bold moves that he has. He’s now taken over the Crimea. He’s trying to take over Ukraine. He’s deployed his forces to the Middle East. He is deploying personnel to Venezuela, in our own sphere of influence. The Russia that has now emerged since the wall went down is every bit as threatening, very frankly, as the old Soviet Union. The biggest concern we have now is that Russia is working with China. We have never seen that kind of a working relationship. They have great cyber capabilities. They have capabilities in space. Two of our strongest adversaries are now working together to try to undermine stability in the United States of America (season 2, episode 1).”

— A remark by reporter Jonathan Swan in his interview with alt-right political strategist Seven Bannon about ultra-conservative movements in Europe, : “Putin has a goal, which is to disrupt and degrade the European Union, to break Europe apart, to split up NATO, to fracture Europe. In some ways, your goals allign.” Bannon, however, denied the goals are common (s2e2).

— A remark by Utah senator Mitt Romney: “I believe that Putin is bad guy and Kim Jong Un is a bad guy. They are doing bad things and we have to push back against the things that are bad (s2e5).”

— A part of an interview with acting United States secretary of homeland security Chad Wolf about Russian involvement in the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign (s3e11).

— A part of an interview with Kevin Mandia, head of cyber-security firm FireEye, about attacks of Russian hackers on the U.S. (s4e5).

Extremism: Zuckerberg, Taliban, and The New York Times

A significant part of censorship in Axios is related to various terrorist and extremist (as far as the Russian state is concerned) organisations.

Meta, which was banned in Russia in March 2022, was most heavily targeted. Amediateka removed the entirety of season three’s 13th episode, which consisted of a single 25-minute interview with Mark Zuckerberg. Mentions and logos of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram were also cut from several other episodes, sometimes for just a few seconds.

Mentions of ISIS (s4e13) and Taliban (s3e10) are also removed. We don’t know for sure when Amediateka’s censors worked with Axios, but it was certainly before April 2025, when Russia’s Supreme Court lifted its 20-year ban on the Taliban. The cuts were made to a 2021 Emmy-winning interview with President Trump, in which he discusses Russian collaboration with the Taliban.

In their zeal, however, the censors also cut mentions of organisations that are not banned in any way in Russia. References to The New York Times were removed three times (s1e1, s2e3, s3e4) and to The Washington Post once (s2e3).

LGBT: segments on Lego, Apple, Fitbit, Roblox, and Nobel prize technology by a transgender journalist

One of the most peculiar categories of censorship relates not to the topics covered, but to the person covering them. Many of the show’s segments on tech were presented by the transgender journalist Ina Fried.

Many of the interviews she conducted were deleted entirely by Amediateka’s censors. These include interviews:

— with Google CEO Sundar Pichai about hatred on the Internet in general and YouTube in particular (s2e2);

— with PayPal CEO Dan Schulman about a cashless world (s2e7);

— with Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna on genome editing technology (s3e17);

— with Fitbit CEO James Park on the fate of fitness trackers during the COVID pandemic (s4e4);

— with Roblox CEO David Baszucki on metaverses (s4e10);

— with The Gates Foundation co-chair and then-wife of Bill Gates, Melinda, on the effects of coronavirus on the world (s3e14);

— with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger on microchip manufacturing (s4e15);

— with Upside Foods CEO on artificial meat production (s4e19).

In the third episode of the first season, Fried interviewed Tim Cook, the openly gay CEO of Apple. This was apparently too much for Amediateka, which removed the entire episode. Along with Cook’s interview, completely innocent (from the point of view of the Russian authorities) stories about changes in the laws on sports betting, social media consumption, and research in the field of human longevity were also censored.

In other instances, only the frames in which Fried appears or speaks were cut.  This happened with the interview of Joe Walston, VP for the Wildlife Conservation Society (s3e5). The journalist was talking to him about the COVID pandemic via Zoom, so it was relatively easy to edit out her questions.

In an interview with Bill Gates about renewable energy sources (s1e4), which was conducted in person, not only Fried’s questions were deleted, but also some of the shots were cropped, so that you couldn’t see her. And in the segment about sustainable production at Lego (s2e3), a bunch of lively scenes were deleted:

— Ina and her son Harvey playing with Lego;

— Ina is presented with a Lego minifigure that looks like her at the company’s factory in Denmark;

— Ina is inquiring about the plastic packaging for the toys;

— Ina is talking to Søren Kristiansen, the company’s senior director of technology, and trying to disconnect two bricks made of experimental materials, an alternative to traditional plastic;

— Ina is interviewing Tim Brooks, Lego’s vice president of environmental responsibility.

LGBT: gay commander-in-chief, inclusive cosmetics, and oath on a Bible

Although Ina Fried’s segnents account for 95% of all LGBT-related censorship in the Russian version of Axios, it is not limited to the journalist’s work. In the same episode with the as Lego, there is a story about Pete Buttigieg, one of the most promising Democratic candidates for the U.S. presidency at the time.

As a Marine Corps reserve officer, Buttigieg served seven months in Afghanistan in 2017. Russian censors cut his account of what it is like to be openly gay in the Marines from the interview, as well as his thoughts on whether a member of the LGBT community could be commander-in-chief and the repeal of Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from military service.

The most unexpected example demonstrating the censorsc deep knowledge of American political traditions is Pete Buttigieg’s episodic appearance in the final titles of s4e2. In a 12-second scene, he is sworn in as secretary of transportation. His husband, Chasten Buttigieg Glezman, is holding the Bible—but their marital status isn’t something that would be obvious to Russian audiences (unlike Amediateka censors). Although the interview with the newly appointed statesman in the episode remained intact, this titles scene was cut.

Among other striking examples of LGBT-related censorship:

— California governor Gavin Newsom recalls how as mayor of San-Francisco he allowed same-sex marriages which were then illegal in the state (s2e4); 

— Joshua Harris, former pastor and author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, explains why he asked the LGBTQ community’s frogiveness for his book, plus a shot with his Instagram post from the Vancouver Pride (s2e7).

— Sue Nabi, CEO of Coty, explains what agender cosmetics is (s4e15).

Abortion: pro-life is censored just as much as pro-choice

Reproductive rights is the third most censored topic in Axios. In total, 12 minutes were cut from the series, which were somehow related to abortion.

The largest cut, surprisingly, is related to the pro-life position. A large segment in s3e15 is dedicated to the fate of Roe v. Wade (it first aired in 2020, before the Supreme Court overruled the decision). Amediateka censors not only deleted a short interview with Alexis McGill Johnson, president of the pro-choice American Civil Liberties Union, but also a more extensive conversation with Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List.

A censor’s nightmare: NATO, Ukraine, Facebook, and a transgender journalist—all in one episode

Episode 18 of season 4, which was released on November 14, 2021, is a kind of “perfect storm” for Russian censors. The episode was removed from Amediateka and other Russian streaming platforms in its entirety, but it is difficult to determine the exact reason.

First, there is an interview with NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, He discusses the prospects of Ukraine joining the alliance and a possible Russian invasion, as well as other topics, including U.S. domestic politics.

Second, the episode ends with an interview of IBM’s CEO Arvind Krishna about his company’s business in general and quantum computers in particular. The interview, of course, is conducted by senior technology correspondent Ina Fried.

Finally, Krishna mentions the “extremist” Facebook in his interview.

Two other stories in this series were also victims of censorship: an interview with former New Jersey governor and prominent Republican Chris Christie—and a review of the potential job market in space.