The false claim stemmed from a mischaracterization of a real proposal to decriminalize porn production in Ukraine. That draft law could plausibly benefit the military through increased tax revenue, but the law itself was not explicitly designed to raise money for armed forces, and the effort to reform pornography laws in Ukraine predates Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
On Oct. 17, 2023, an account on X (formerly Twitter) posted a screenshot of what it alleged was an Aug. 19, 2023, headline about the Ukrainian government legalizing the production of pornography to help fund its military during the country's war with Russia:
Snopes was unable identify any website with this alleged headline, but it closely matched the framing of a story that published that same day (Aug. 19) on the Russian state-backed media outlet RT:
That story by RT referenced a real legislative proposal by a member of Ukraine's parliamentary body, Yaroslav Zhelezniak, to decriminalize pornography in the country. However, that measure is an attempt by supporters to limit the state's control over consensual sexual activity — not an effort to raise money for the country's military. Nowhere in the legislation is military funding mentioned, and it does not spell out how the proposed changes to the porn industry would drive more money for Ukrainian's armed forces.
Like many former Soviet Bloc countries, pornography is entirely illegal in Ukraine. In August 2023, however, Zhelezniak introduced the proposal titled (via Google translate), "Draft Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine on Ensuring Freedom from Interference in a Person's Private Life," to remove some restrictions on the production of porn, specifically. As described by the Kyiv Independent, an English-language news outlet in Ukraine:
Producing and distributing pornography is currently illegal in Ukraine. Broad interpretations of the law mean that even sharing a nude photograph with a partner can land a person in jail. In 2023 already, 699 cases have been opened over the distribution, sale, and production of pornography, not including cases of child pornography.
In one case in July, a court in Poltava Oblast fined a woman almost $1,000 for sending two videos to her boyfriend. Meanwhile, in Sumy Oblast, a man was [sentenced] to three years in prison with one year of probation for sending intimate photos and videos via a dating website
Lawmakers and advocates say this has to change. In their view, the decades-old prohibition of pornography harms ordinary citizens by going after them for consensual sexual content, wasting state resources in the process.
Zhelezniak argued current Ukrainian law prohibits the production and distribution of material that many Ukrainians already produce or engage with. He said he believes the law should do more to prevent people from sharing nude photos without consent by including additional legal penalties, and protect individual adult content creators against abuse by law enforcement authorities by removing other legal penalties. Supporters say the current legal climate allows authorities to coerce people who produce adult content or perform on webcams. As Zhelezniak explained to the Kyiv Post in August 2023:
One of the problems of the current legislation is that law enforcement officers, namely cyber police officers, correspond with users of pornographic platforms – for example, those that strip for clients on webcams. They pretend to be customers and then offer them “cover” for a price, [Zhelezniak] said.
The proposal would add explicit protections against victims of revenge porn, reaffirm the illegality of child pornography and "extreme" pornography, and remove criminal penalties for the production and distribution of legal porn. The proposed legislation was in committee, as of this writing.
Nowhere in the draft law was military funding mentioned. An explanatory note attached to the bill, however, pointed out — in an apparent attempt to highlight the current system's alleged flaws — the Ukrainian government spends money to prosecute models on the adult content creation platform OnlyFans using tax revenue it receives from the same site. In 2021, Ukraine implemented a so-called Google tax that levels a 20% tax on foreign corporations that provide services in Ukraine. That tax applies to London-based OnlyFans, despite the fact that, in some cases, it's hosting content that is technically illegal in the country. The explanatory note mentions that surpluses in the government's annual budget generally go toward the Ukrainian military. It is plausible such a law could provide funding to the armed forces, but that was not its intent.
Additionally, the explanatory note argues the government spends significant resources investigating and prosecuting cases against models generating revenue for OnlyFans and, by extension, Ukraine, as described in the Kyiv Independent:
OnlyFans, one of the world’s largest platforms for erotic content, has already generated more than Hr 34 million ($920,000) in tax revenue to Ukraine’s state budget from value-added tax in the first six months of the year, Ukrainian lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak, who has been spearheading the latest effort to legalize porn, told the Kyiv Independent.
“It's stupid to collect taxes for that and say it's criminal at the same time,” Zhelezniak said. “If we decriminalize porn, it means less corruption and more taxes for the budget.”
The explanatory note also referenced an organization that allows Ukrainians to donate erotic photos to people who provide evidence of a donation to the armed forces of Ukraine — TerOnlyfans. That group is independent of the Ukrainian government. It was referenced only in the draft law's explanatory note, nowhere in the actual legislation. That section (via Google translate) read:
Adult pornography is widely available in Ukraine and most of its aspects [do] not cause public disturbance. On the contrary, such an approach usually causes positive public reaction and media coverage. For almost one and a half years of existence of the TerOnlyfans platform, volunteers [...] collected about UAH 31.5 million in donations for the Armed Forces of Ukraine for erotic photo cards.
Quotes from TerOnlyfans Executive Director Anastasia Kuchmenko were included in most news stories about the draft law, and that media focus seemingly contributed to the spread of false claims that the proposal to decriminalize the production of porn was connected to military funding. In reality, however, while the bill indeed proposed lighter restrictions on porn production, it did not call for the government to use revenue from that proposed change on its armed forces. For that reason, we rated this claim "False."