Putin says Sir Elton John “mistaken” about LGBT rights in Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that Sir Elton John was “mistaken” about LGBT rights in Russia.

“I have a lot of respect for him, he is a genius musician, we all enjoy his music, but I think he is mistaken,” Putin said when asked about Sir Elton’s comments in Osaka where he was attending a G20 summit.

Sir Elton had written an open letter to Vladimir Putin accusing him of "hypocrisy" over his claims Russia has "no problems" with gay people.

Sir Elton in an interview said on Friday that he was deeply upset by Putin’s comment that liberal values were “obsolete” and had been rejected by the majority of people in Western nations.

He said his film ‘Rocketman’ was edited in Russia to remove references to his husband David Furnish and their family. Russia has denied censorship.

Putin said Russian authorities had a “relaxed and unprejudiced” attitude towards LGBT people, but decisions about gender identity could only be made by adults and therefore minors need to be “left alone”.

Russian law bans “propaganda of homosexuality among minors”.

Putin also said that while he did not deny the attractiveness of liberal values in general, he was referring to situations where they impinged on traditional lifestyles.