Vladimir Putin Claims West Is “Trying To Cancel” Russia

UPDATE, 07:45: JK Rowling responded to Vladimir Putin’s TV broadcast today in which the Russian president defended her as a victim of cancel culture and claimed the West was attempting to cancel his country.

On Twitter, the Harry Potter author posted the below message in which she tried to distance herself from Putin, adding the hashtag #IStandWithUkraine.

Critiques of Western cancel culture are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics. #IStandWithUkraine https://t.co/aNItgc5aiW

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 25, 2022

PREVIOUSLY, 07:18: Russian premier Vladimir Putin has delivered a TV address in which he claimed the West is “trying to cancel” his country.

During a deranged-sounding rant, translated and broadcast by Sky News, Putin at one point said that Harry Potter author JK Rowling had been similarly cancelled “just because she didn’t satisfy the demands of gender rights”.

Rowling has become a controversial figure due her to public opinions on transgender people, with numerous comments across the last few years drawing widespread criticism including from the stars of the Harry Potter films.

Putin is stepping up his propaganda machine and cracking down on free speech in Russia while his invasion of Ukraine continues to falter.

“They are now trying to cancel our country. I’m talking about the progressive discrimination of everything to do with Russia,” he commented in the TV broadcast, stating that there was a campaign against Russian composers. He also compared the West’s supposed actions to the Nazis burning books during Hitler’s rise to power.

The video was from a televised meeting with cultural figures in Russia.

Earlier today, in an interview with Deadline, Denis Ivanov said that a cultural boycott of Russia is the right thing to do until peace is achieved in Ukraine.