When Anna Mukydza received a message from a subscriber saying he couldn’t pay, she realized something was wrong with her OnlyFans account.

Mukydza’s account was suspended along with the accounts of many other OnlyFans creators in Russia and Belarus following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She uses the platform, like many others, to create and sell adult content, which she claims accounts for up to 40% of her income.

Her account was restored a few days later. But it came at a price: Mukydza estimates she lost a quarter of her subscribers and €1,000 in sales as a result of the move.

OnlyFans said in a statement that the accounts of its Russian creators had been restored. According to the platform, the pause came as a result of sanctions imposed on the country’s financial institutions, which limited their ability to process international transactions.

Following OnlyFans’ statement to Euronews Next, another creator, Sophia*, sent screenshots from the OnlyFans app purporting to show that her Russian ID had been rejected by the app’s verification process because it was from “a prohibited country or state.”

Sophia lost subscribers and was unable to manage her platform page due to her inability to verify her identity. She was also unable to withdraw her earnings, she claimed, because OnlyFans’ terms of service allow the platform to keep earnings “indefinitely.”

The impact of sanctions has also disrupted the livelihoods of Russian and Belarusian workers on other platforms.

On March 1st, the CEO of Estonian ride-hailing company Bolt announced an immediate halt to the company’s operations in Belarus, citing the invasion as a reason.

Bolt had “thousands” of drivers when it left Belarus, according to the company’s statement to Euronews Next.

Then, on March 5th, Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, sent an email to its Russian creators informing them that they would no longer be able to receive payouts to Russian bank accounts.

According to the streamer, it was also a significant source of income. However, when third-party payment processor PayPal, as well as Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, left Russia, they took any hope of being paid with them.

The unstable situation caused by the war has revealed the risks of working on a tightly controlled international platform, according to the Russian OnlyFans creators Euronews Next spoke to.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, the Twitch streamer explained to Euronews Next why so many western companies chose to cut ties with Russia.

Mukydza told Euronews Next that she had received support from other OnlyFans creators in other countries, but that her time on the platform had left her depressed.