Now, the lucrative industry that the country can’t stop, and also can’t tax, is at the center of a parliamentary debate with direct military implications, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Yaroslav Zhelezniak, an opposition lawmaker who chairs Ukraine’s parliamentary finance committee, is leading a movement to legalize pornography. His argument: doing so would generate up to $25 million a year in tax revenue — enough, he calculates, to fund 30,000 military drones.
A bill he co-authored passed its first parliamentary vote in July and is now awaiting a second reading.
The legal and financial trap
Ukraine’s porn ban hasn’t quite eliminated the industry as intended. Instead, the ban pushed it underground and abroad, creating plenty of corruption in lieu of generating tax revenue. In an example cited by the WSJ, police departments in three separate Ukrainian regions were each found to be receiving over $20,000 a month in bribes to look the other way.
The scale of the industry became impossible to ignore after Russia’s invasion. OnlyFans’ UK-based parent company, Fenix International, reportedly provided Ukrainian tax authorities with data showing that 7,900 Ukrainians had earned more than $131 million from the platform in 2023 alone — representing millions in unpaid taxes.
When the government began sending tax notices to OnlyFans models, many filed declarations — only to find that doing so effectively constituted a confession to criminal pornography production. Police raids followed.
Officers searched Dvornikova’s home, seizing a laptop, flash drives and the equivalent of $200,000 in cash she’d set aside for taxes. She told the WSJ the officers offered to let her keep half the cash in exchange for a bribe, which she turned down.
Tax lawyer Lesia Mykhalenko, who has represented more than 100 OnlyFans models in Ukraine, told the WSJ, “This is a victimless crime. It unnecessarily burdens the legal system at a time when we should be focused on defending the country.”
$25 million in context
For a country spending more than it can raise at home to survive a full-scale war, $25 million is a modest sum. According to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, as reported by the New Voice of Ukraine, the country requires $120 billion annually to implement its military strategy, with roughly half expected to come from domestic sources and EU loans. The remainder is reportedly dependent on international partners.
