Biggest anime streaming service, Crunchyroll has announced that they won’t be providing streaming services to Russia until further notice.
As the situation in Ukraine is getting worse day after day after the invasion of the Russian military, many international companies are suspending their services in Russia. Sony’s owned Crunchyroll and Wakanim have announced that they are suspending their streaming services in Russia.
If you try to open the Crunchyroll website from Russia, it won’t work. However, premium users who have already paid for the subscription can access Crunchyroll, by using mobile app. Premium Crunchyroll users can watch anime series that have been already released, but no new anime series will be available to them. Crunchyroll had also suspended payment from credit cards issued in Russia.
Netflix and Amazon Prime have also suspended its streaming services in Russia. Similarly, movie studios like Disney, Universal Pictures, and Sony Pictures have also suspended their film releases in Russia.
Russia launched an attack on Ukraine on February 24. The war has recently turned to worse situation after the attack on Ukrainian Cities. United States and Europe have imposed economic sanctions on Russia.
Crunchyroll is an American licensing and production company, focused on Anime, and manga. Crunchyroll is owned by Sony Pictures Television, who have have also acquired Funimation from AT&T for approximately $1.175 billion US dollars. Recently, it was announced that Funimation and Crunchryoll are merging, and all the Funimation anime will be moving to Crunchryoll library.
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Source: Crunchyroll