President Vladimir Putin on Friday said the West was trying to cancel Russian culture, including the works of great composers such as Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Dmitry Shostakovich and Sergei Rachmaninov.
"Today they are trying to cancel a whole thousand-year culture, our people," Putin said in a televised meeting with cultural figures, referring to the cancellation of events involving Russian masters in some Western countries in recent weeks.
"In this way they are banning Russian writers and books," Putin added.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Conor Humphries; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
