VLADIMIR Putin has used JK Rowling to desperately attack the West – and compared cancel-culture to the Nazis in his latest bizarre rant.

In a televised meeting, the Russian dicator said the British Harry Potter author was cancelled "just because she didn't satisfy the demands of gender rights".

Putin also accused the West of trying to "cancel" the works of Russian composers such as Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Dmitry Shostakovich and Sergei Rachmaninov.

He said: "They cancelled Joanne 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 are now trying to cancel our country. I'm talking about the progressive discrimination of everything to do with Russia."

Rowling, 56, became a target for some in the trans community over her views on gender and sex identity.

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Putin also compared "cancel culture" to Nazis trying to burn books in the 1930s.

"We remember the footage when they were burning books," he said.

"It is impossible to imagine such a thing in our country and we are insured against this thanks to our culture.

"And it's inseparable for us from our motherland, from Russia, where there is no place for ethnic intolerance, where for centuries representatives from dozens of ethnic groups have been living together."

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Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov compared Europe's tactics to Nazi Germany and slammed the sanctions against Moscow.

He said the term "total war" had been borrowed from Hitler's playbook.

"They have declared a true hybrid war, a total war against us," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a meeting in Moscow.

"This term – used by Nazi Germany – is now used by many European politicians when they say what they want to do with Russia."

He accused European officials of trying to "destroy, break, annihilate and suffocate the economy and Russia as a whole".

Since Putin sent troops to Ukraine on February 24, the West has pummelled Moscow with unprecedented measures – making Russia the most sanctioned country in the world.

Moscow has claimed it wants to "de-militarise" and "denazify" Ukraine.

The Soviet Union's role in defeating Hitler's Germany in 1945 remains a huge point of pride in Russia – and lies at the centre of Putin's patriotic speeches.

Putin has slammed the West's economic "blitzkrieg" and compared the sanctions to "anti-Semitic pogroms carried out by Nazis".

He has also accused the West of working to weaken Russia with the help of "national traitors".

It comes as Ukrainian forces are driving back the Russians from around Kyiv – Boris Johnson said they can "certainly win" against the invaders.

The latest assessment from the Ministry of Defence said the Ukrainians were expected to continue to try to push the Russians away from the capital.

"Ukrainian counter-attacks, and Russian forces falling back on overextended supply lines, has allowed Ukraine to reoccupy towns and defensive positions up to 35 kilometres (22 miles) east of Kyiv," it said.

In the south of the country, it said the Russian advance on the key Black Sea port city of Odesa was being slowed by "logistic issues and Ukrainian resistance".

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In an interview with BBC2's Newsnight, the PM said: "There's a sense in which Putin has already failed or lost because I think that he had literally no idea that the Ukrainians were going to mount the resistance that they are, and he totally misunderstood what Ukraine is.

"And far from extinguishing Ukraine as a nation, he is solidifying it."

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