Vladimir Putin: I’ll protect Russia against Western liberalism like cancel culture and transgender rights

Vladimir Putin said the anti-racism agenda in the West was dividing society as he compared cancel culture warriors in liberal democracies to the Bolsheviks of Russia’s 1917 Revolution.

“The incessant emphasis on race pushes people further apart whereas the true fighters for civic rights tried to eliminate those differences," the Russian president said.

In a speech at the Valdai Discussion club in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, he lashed also lashed out transgender rights, accusing the West of being “monstrous” to children.

Mr Putin went as far as to compare Western activists pushing for a progressive agenda to Bolsheviks of Russia’s 1917 Revolution “who were also utterly intolerant of opinions different from their own.”

He accused progressives of distorting people’s biological traits with transgender rights. The Russian president regularly rails against Western ideologies and presents himself as a defender of "traditional" values.

“People who dare to say men and women still exist as a biological fact are almost ostracised,” he said.

“Not to mention the simply monstrous fact that children today are taught from a young age that a boy can easily become a girl and the other way round.”

LGBT rights in Russia has been in jeopardy for nearly a decade since Russia adopted a Bill banning “gay propaganda” among minors, which has been used an excuse to persecute LGBT activists.

He said: “Fighting racism is a necessary and noble thing but the new cancel culture turns it into reverse descrimination, reverse racism."

'Sputnik tourism'

Mr Putin has also made a claim that Europeans travel to Russia to get the Sputnik V vaccine because it's safer than the vaccines available in the West.

"I have heard it many times: citizens of European nations come here to get vaccinated with Sputnik and then buy a certificate to show they have had a Pfizer jab," he said.

"Seriously. I've been told by doctors from European countries. They think Sputnik is safer and more reliable."

Russia's Sputnik V has proven to be 92 per cent effective against the disease but it has not yet been approved by the World Health Organisation or the European Union.

There have been multiple reports, some of which led to criminal proceedings, that Russian officials and doctors have been caught forging vaccination certificates in Russia for those who did not want to take the homegrown vaccine.