Putin Uses Victory Day Speech to Return to US Culture Wars

In his recent Vic­to­ry Day speech, Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladamir Putin has once again referred to right-wing themes that dom­i­nate the so-called “cul­ture wars” in the US. In the speech, Mr. Putin claimed:

May 9, 2022 The Unit­ed States began claim­ing their excep­tion­al­ism, par­tic­u­lar­ly after the col­lapse of the Sovi­et Union, thus den­i­grat­ing not just the entire world but also their satel­lites, who have to pre­tend not to see any­thing, and to obe­di­ent­ly put up with it. But we are a dif­fer­ent coun­try. Rus­sia has a dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter. We will nev­er give up our love for our Moth­er­land, our faith and tra­di­tion­al val­ues, our ances­tors’ cus­toms and respect for all peo­ples and cul­tures. Mean­while, the West seems to be set to can­cel these mil­len­nia-old val­ues. Such moral degra­da­tion under­lies the cyn­i­cal fal­si­fi­ca­tio­n­is of World War II his­to­ry, esca­lat­ing Rus­so­pho­bia, prais­ing trai­tors, mock­ing their vic­tims’ mem­o­ry and cross­ing out the courage of those who won the Vic­to­ry through suffering.

Read the rest here.

Mr. Putin’s ref­er­ence to the West­’s alleged “can­cel­la­tion of mil­len­nia-old val­ues” is undoubt­ed­ly a com­par­i­son with what is often referred to as “can­cel cul­ture,” broad­ly defined as a term for peo­ple who have been expelled from social or pro­fes­sion­al cir­cles as a result of a per­ceived social trans­gres­sion. US right-wing media has described the phe­nom­e­non as follows:

Over the last few years, the social-media trend has gained momen­tum under the trendy new name — plac­ing celebri­ties, com­pa­nies and media alike under a micro­scope of polit­i­cal correctness.

In Jan­u­ary of this year, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed on what we described at the time as a some­what over­looked speech by Russ­ian Pres­i­dent  Putin last, char­ac­ter­ized by a Russ­ian aca­d­e­m­ic as the “first major and strong call for rein­vent­ing Russ­ian ide­ol­o­gy for Rus­sia and the world.” We also not­ed that in his speech, Putin was close­ly mir­ror­ing right-wing themes that dom­i­nate the so-called “cul­ture wars” in the US, such as a pas­sage where he assert­ed that “social progress” advo­cates are adopt­ing Marx­ist ideas in their fight against racial discrimination.

Putin’s full speech here.

Read an Israeli NGO report on the speech; go here.