US-led sanctions has changed to anti-anything-Russian racism a la Nazi's anti-anything-Jewish

ABC:

Vladimir Putin accuses West of 'cancelling' Russia, as focus shifts to 'liberating' Ukraine's Donbas region

Vladimir Putin says Russian cultural figures are being "cancelled" by Western countries.(Reuters: Thibault Camus)


President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of trying to cancel Russian culture, including the works of great composers such as Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninov, as Russian forces refocus military efforts on eastern Ukraine.

Key points:

• Mr Putin compared the cancellation of a number of Russian cultural events in recent weeks with the actions of Nazi Germany
• A number of events involving Russian cultural figures who have voiced support for the war have been cancelled
• Moscow says Russian forces will now focus on seizing the Donbas region claimed by Russian-backed separatists

At a televised meeting with leading cultural figures, Mr Putin compared the cancellation of a number of Russian cultural events in recent weeks with the actions of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

"Today they are trying to cancel a whole thousand-year culture, our people," Mr Putin said, citing the cancellation of events involving Russian artists in some Western countries.

"I am talking about the gradual discrimination against everything linked to Russia … a tendency unfolding in a number of Western countries," he said.

A number of events involving Russian cultural figures who have voiced support for the war have been cancelled, including some involving Valery Gergiev, general director of the St Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre, who spoke to Mr Putin during Friday's meeting.

The Munich Philharmonic has dismissed Russian Valery Gergiev.(Reuters: Ivan Sekretarev)

Russian conductor fails to condemn invasion

Mr Gergiev has been dismissed as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic and lost the chance to conduct at Milan's La Scala after he failed to condemn Russia's invasion.

Spain's Teatro Real, one of Europe's major opera houses, cancelled performances later this year by Russia's Bolshoi Ballet.A much smaller number of events have been cancelled due to their association with dead Russian cultural figures, with the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra dropping a Tchaikovsky piece from its program and media reports saying similar moves were taken by orchestras in Japan and Croatia.

Auction houses Christie's, Sotheby's and Bonhams have cancelled sales of Russian art in London.