Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has clamped down on any dissent since the invasion of Ukraine, on Wednesday blasted pro-Western Russians by calling them “national traitors” in a televised address.
“The West will try to rely on the so-called fifth column, on national traitors, on those who earn money here with us but live there. And I mean ‘live there’ not even in the geographical sense of the word, but according to their thoughts, their slavish consciousness,” Putin said.
These people "cannot live without oysters and gender freedom," he added.
The term "fifth column" usually refers to enemy sympathizers and originated during the Spanish Civil War.
The Russian leader, whose forces have become bogged down in Ukraine and whose country is facing economic disaster due to Western sanctions, has often blamed Western influences for what ails his country.
- He has systematically curtailed LGBTQ rights in Russia. Last week, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, a Putin ally, said the Ukraine conflict was an extension of a fundamental culture clash between the wider Russian world and Western liberal values, exemplified by expressions of gay pride.
- Putin has enforced blind loyalty from Russian media and earlier this month signed a censorship bill into law making it near impossible for international news organizations to accurately report the news in or from Russia.
- Despite the clampdown, a Russian state television journalist on Monday protested the invasion of Ukraine during a live news broadcast on the tightly controlled Channel One network.
- His economy is on the verge of default. On Wednesday, Russia said it had ordered the $117 million in interest payments it owes Wednesday to be sent to investors. But because the funds used to make the debt payments came from Russia's frozen foreign assets, it remains unclear whether investors will receive their money.
- President Joe Biden, in a shift in the US position, on Wednesday said the Russian leader was a “war criminal.” It was the harshest condemnation of Putin's actions from any US official since the war in Ukraine began three weeks ago.
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