Putin says the West wants to “abolish” Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a speech today that the West is trying to “Cancellation” State – An online term for boycotting celebrities or anonymous people for behavior considered inappropriate. He referred to “discrimination” against Russian culture in Western countries and likened it to the Nazi book burnings in Germany and Austria in the 1930s.

“They are trying to abolish our country, and I’m talking about progressively separating everything that has to do with Russia,” he declared.

As Putin quoted the Harry Potter story writer, k. Rowling as evidence that the West “likes to cancel people”. “It was ‘canceled’ simply because it did not meet the demands of gender rights,” he said.

Rowling accused of transphobia Through a series of controversial posts on social networks. She also wrote a detective book in which a man of equal gender masquerades as a woman to deceive them. Shortly after the summary was released, the hashtag #RIPJKRowling (“Rest in Peace, J.K. Rowling) was one of the most talked about tags on Twitter.

Putin also claimed that the West’s “abolition” of Russian culture includes the works of great composers such as Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Dmitriy Shostakovich and Sergey Rachmaninov.

Russia has been subjected to several sanctions from Western countries since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, which… 30 days completed Today. Among them are a ban on the import of gas and oil, as well as restrictions on billionaire businessmen who support Putin’s government.

The attack in Ukraine also generated a wave of global solidarity, in addition to sanctions imposed by governments. Major sports federations and reference cultural centers excluded athletes and artists from Russia from their programs: in Paris, the conductor of the Russian orchestra Valery Gergiev and the Bolshoi Orchestra were excluded from the program; In London, conductor Pavel Sorokin was excluded from the Royal Opera House.

In addition, Brazilian dancer David Motta Sues and Italian Jacopo Tese, both Bolshoi, quit.

J.K. Rowling’s response

The author responded to Putin’s statement on social media, saying that it would be better not to criticize the “abolition of culture” by people who kill civilians for the crime of resistance, or who arrest and name their critics, in reference to Alexei Navalny.

Navalny, an opponent of Putin, was sentenced this week to nine years in prison for fraud and contempt, in a process that lasted nearly two years. In August 2020, he was seriously injured in Siberia, a victim of poisoning with a nerve toxic agent. He said the attack would have been ordered by the Russian president himself.

The Kremlin denies this, but the Russian authorities have never investigated the alleged assassination attempt.

*cohm Reuters and Agence France-Presse