This content was produced in Russia where the law restricts coverage of Russian military operations in Ukraine.
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said the West was “satanic” and rejected “moral norms” in a combative speech delivered from the Kremlin on Friday.
Putin attacked the West’s liberalism, saying that, unlike Russia, it had turned away from “traditional” and “religious” values.
At one point in the speech, in which Putin announced Russia was annexing four regions of Ukraine, he asked the assembled dignitaries if they wanted “children to be offered sex-change operations”, a practice he implied was widespread in the West.
In his two decades in power, Putin has routinely promoted what he says are “traditional values” and suppressed LGBTQ rights through a number of laws and by backing ultra-conservative movements and initiatives.