harry potter

Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine late last month prompted a host of devastating sanctions against Russia, imposed by the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. President Joe Biden has levied a host of sanctions targeting the Russian government, Russian oligarchs, and Russian banking systems.

Putin has attempted to implement sanctions of his own against notable American political figures like Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, including bans on their travel to Russia, which were widely mocked.

Furious that his invasion of a sovereign country prompted backlash from Ukraine's allies, Putin is now accusing western countries of engaging in "cancel culture."

Watch below.

An interpreter recounted Putin's remarks during a recent press conference, where he said:

"[The West] canceled [J.K.] 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're 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. ... They're now engaging in the cancel culture."

"Cancel culture"—or the voluntary mass abandonment of support for public figures due to unsavory actions or comments—is a familiar term for Americans, who've frequently heard Republican elected officials and media personalities decry it despite these figures repeatedly engaging in it themselves.

J.K. Rowling, the author of the world renowned Harry Potter series, was supposedly canceled for being a "TERF," or trans-exclusionary radical feminist. The ideology hinges on the belief that transgender women aren't "real" women and shouldn't be included in feminist agendas. Though figures like Putin claim Rowling has been canceled, her Harry Potter books currently make up seven out of 10 of the items on Amazon's "Most Read" list and movies about her wizarding world continue to be produced, with Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore hitting theaters next month.

After constantly hearing the "cancel culture" chorus on repeat from Republicans at home, social media users were maddened to see Putin repeating it abroad.

They used the comments to condemn Putin's aggression toward both Ukraine and dissidents in his own country.

In a tweet, Rowling alluded to Putin's comments, writing that "Critiques of Western cancel culture are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics."