KYIV—Lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada, the unicameral 450-seat legislative body of Ukraine, failed to pass a proposed bill that would decriminalize pornography nationally.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the independent Ukrainian government has had anti-pornography and anti-obscenity laws despite the growth of the country's adult content sector.
"It’s very unfortunate," said Ruslan Stefanchuk, chair of the Rada, via reporting by the Ukrainian News Agency. "I would have liked to see real liberalization, but apparently the Soviet mindset is still firmly entrenched."
Lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak led the charge to change existing Soviet-era pornography prohibitions. The law is “nothing short of stupidity,” Zheleznyak told the Kyiv Post journalist Kateryna Zakharchenko in an August 2023 report. The proposal received only 207 votes out of a minimum of 226 required for passage into law.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs indicated that it didn't object to the language of the bill. However, lawmakers were unable to meet the required votes for passage.
The vote comes as the Security Service of Ukraine and national law enforcement agencies uncovered a corruption scheme involving regional police officials who allegedly accepted bribes to turn a blind eye to underground pornography production outfits and adult content creators in multiple regions around the country, as AVN reported.
