Putin compares West's anti-Russian campaign to Nazi persecution

MOSCOW

Moves against Russians in the West over the Ukraine war are like the ugly, racist persecution seen under Nazi Germany, Russian President Vladimir Putin argued on Friday.

Speaking at a meeting with cultural workers, Putin said the West is trying "to cancel Russia," fighting against its culture and banning Russian writers and composers.

"Today they are trying to abolish an entire thousand-year-old country, our people,” said Putin.

“I am talking about the progressive discrimination against everything connected with Russia, about this trend that is unfolding in a number of Western states – with the full connivance, and sometimes with the encouragement of the ruling elites.”

He continued: "This notorious ‘cancellation culture’ has turned into a ‘cancellation of culture.’ Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, and Rachmaninov are being removed from concert posters. Russian writers and their books are also banned.

"The last time such a massive campaign to destroy unwanted literature was carried out by the Nazis in Germany almost 90 years ago. We know well and remember from the newsreel footage how books were burned right in the squares," he said.

Hope truth ‘makes its way’

However, Putin said there is a hope that the truth "will make its way" through ordinary people, citing as an example a street artist in the Italian city of Naples who painted a portrait of classical Russian writer Dostoyevsky in protest of his works being excluded from the European literary heritage.

"Such acts give hope that it is through the mutual sympathy of people, through the culture that binds and unites us all, the truth will make its way, that art and education, as it should be, will sow only the smart, kind and eternal," Putin said.

The Russia-Ukraine war spurred protests in the West toward anything associated with Russia, including its people.

Among other things, Russian cultural and institutions were targeted, most Russian sport federations were barred from international competitions, and athletes are allowed to compete only with neutral status.

Great Britain cancelled performances of the Russian State Ballet of Siberia, the Royal Moscow Ballet, and the Bolshoi Ballet, and conductor Valery Gergiev – a prominent supporter of Putin’s – was fired from the Munich Philharmonic.

US Congressman Eric Swalwell – a onetime presidential candidate – urged kicking "every Russian student out of the United States,” remarks echoed by British lawmaker Roger Gale, who said all Russians living in Great Britain should be “sent home.”

Russia began its war Feb. 24. It has been met with international outrage, with the EU, US, and UK, among others, implementing tough financial sanctions on Moscow.

At least 1,081 civilians have been killed in Ukraine and 1,707 injured, according to UN estimates, while cautioning that the true figure is likely far higher.

More than 3.7 million Ukrainians have also fled to neighboring countries, with over 6.5 million more displaced inside the country, according to the UN refugee agency.