One of Ukraine’s largest propaganda channels on Telegram has denounced the record success of Russian children’s cartoon ‘Masha and the Bear’ in the country as its “cringe of the day.”
The beloved kids’ show, based on the shenanigans of a mischievous little girl named Masha and a retired circus bear – has risen to the top-10 in worldwide popularity since it launched in 2009.
“Cringe of the day. The YouTube channel of the Russian cartoon ‘Masha and the Bear’ is the most popular among all children’s channels in Ukraine,” the ‘Trukha’ (‘Rot’) Telegram channel wrote on Wednesday.
“In 2025 alone, Russians could earn $2.4 million from Ukrainian viewers. Not bad donations for the enemy army, right?” it wrote.
Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, YouTube has imposed strict restrictions on Russia and Belarus, including a complete suspension of monetization for all users and content creators from these countries.
According to data published by the Telegram channel, at least 18 million Ukrainians are subscribed to the ‘Masha and the Bear’ YouTube account. In total, the cartoon’s channel currently has 52.7 million subscribers from around the world.
“Do you show Russian content to your children? Is it okay for you?,” Trukha wrote.
Ukraine has increasingly restricted the use of the Russian language, and moved to sever cultural ties with Russia after the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev.
Moscow has long accused the regime of mistreating the Russian-speaking population.
Russia’s main concern in Ukraine is to “to protect the rights of the ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking people who believe they belong to Russian culture and Russian history,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday.
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