The most popular cartoon among Ukrainian children has become “Masha and the Bear.” Although the series is dubbed in Ukrainian, it is likely that Russians are the ones profiting from it, as the channel description lists an official Russian website with a “.ru” domain and a page on the social network “VKontakte,” which is banned in Ukraine.
Source: OBOZREVATEL
This was reported by Detector Media, which analyzed popular children’s channels among Ukrainians that are registered in Ukraine. Among the top ten, most feature videos in Russian.
Even after 2014, the cartoon was broadcast on Ukrainian TV channels “Inter” and “1+1.” In 2017, the State Film Agency considered a request to ban the cartoon due to alleged Russian propaganda narratives. For example, in one episode, the main character appeared wearing an NKVD hat — one of the USSR’s agencies whose employees, among other things, suppressed anti-Soviet liberation movements.
The authors of the study suggest that by registering a channel in Ukraine, a Russian company can bypass the suspension of monetization on YouTube for users from Russia, allowing it to continue earning from Ukrainian viewers. In addition, there are several other language versions of “Masha and the Bear” on the platform, including English, French, and Spanish.
“If you roughly calculate and take into account that children watch cartoons for a long time, which gives viewing depth, the average RPM of ‘Masha and the Bear’ could be $3. Thus, in 2025 alone, Russians likely earned $2.4 million from Ukrainian viewers. That’s donations to the Russian army. And this channel has existed for over 11 years,” says Olha Tyshchuk-Volska, head of Tyshchuk Digital HUB, which develops brands on YouTube.
The second place in the ranking was taken by the channel of Lviv authors and singers, “With Love to Children,” which in 2025 received 614 million views. The channel publishes children’s songs and movement exercises for toddlers.
Content for teenagers, mostly created in Russian, was also included in the list, notes Tyshchuk-Volska. Among the top ten are the channels Fast Sergey and Amelka Karamelka.
At the same time, channels such as “Ladybug and Cat Noir,” “Brobax,” and “Plus Plus,” which publish children’s animated series, are also very popular.
Determining the Russian origin of channels, despite their positioning as “in Ukraine,” is not easy. This is because only YouTube can provide documents about who their ultimate beneficiary is.
However, some channels may have links in their descriptions to Russian websites and social networks.
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