Putin says the West is ‘cancelling’ Russia like they did to J.K. Rowling

Vladimir Putin has likened Russia portrayal in the West to the public backlash Harry Potter author JK Rowling has faced for making comments widely seen as transphobic.

The Russian president used a televised speech to launch a tirade against the “progressive discrimination of everything to do with Russia.”

He added: “So they just cancelled, cynically, this truth. They cancelled Joanne Rowling recently, the children’s author. Her books are published all over the world. Just because she didn’t satisfy the demands of gender rights.

“They are now trying to cancel our country. I’m talking about the progressive discrimination of everything to do with Russia, this trend that’s unfolding in a number of Western states.”

Putin’s comment come in light of events involving Russian artists being cancelled after the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov, too, are being cancelled, alleged Putin. 

Russian cultural figures who backed the war saw their events being cancelled recently, including that of Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, who is a friend and supporter of Putin.

Rowing tweeted that “critiques of Western cancel culture are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians.”