Between state censorship and Western sanctions, publishing in Russia is a hot mess.
Panicked writers and editors remove anything from their books that has to do with politics, war (even just the word), queer people, or “childfree ideology,” which is the Putin regime’s term for any non-idealized information on pregnancy, childhood, and family life: a desperate measure to boost our dying demography. Meanwhile, bookstores offer illegally published works by foreign authors because sanctions have made it acceptable for Russia to thumb its nose at international law.
