Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, invited by Russia to address the UN Security Council, condemned the Russian invasion on Wednesday and those who provoked it, drawing the ire of Ukraine, AFP reported.

“The invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine was illegal. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” ​​the former Pink Floyd member said during a video conference.

But “it is not true that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked. Therefore, I also strongly condemn the provocateurs,” he added.

The British musician, who has sparked controversy in recent months for his stance on the war in Ukraine, also called for an immediate ceasefire so that “no Ukrainian or Russian lives are lost”.

He also wryly called the Security Council “without influence”: “this lack of authority is perhaps good news (…) if I can open my mouth without fear of having my head torn off.”

His speech was immediately criticized by the Ukrainian ambassador: “Another brick in the wall of Russian disinformation and propaganda.”

“How sad it is for his former fans to see him admit that he is just another brick in the wall, in the wall of Russian disinformation and propaganda,” said Serhiy Kislytsia, referring to the lyrics of the famous Pink Floyd song “Another Brick in the”. Wall”.

“I’m surprised he didn’t blow up a pig-shaped balloon in the boardroom today, as he does at many of his concerts. What would pigs with swastikas, sickles and hammers be like this time, Mr. Waters?”, he added, asking the musician “instead of lecturing” Rada to stick to his guitar.

“While I naturally recognize (Roger Waters’) impressive credentials as an artist, his qualifications to speak to us as an expert on arms control and security in Europe are less obvious,” joked US Deputy Ambassador Richard Mills.

“Persona non grata” in Poland

Russia invited this meeting to discuss the weapons that the West supplies to Ukraine.

By supplying these weapons, “our former Western partners are forcing (Ukraine) to hold on as long as possible, not thinking about the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and not leaving aside morality,” Russian Ambassador Vasyl Nebenzya said.

He welcomed the intervention of Roger Waters, “one of the most important activists in the modern anti-war movement”, seeing it as a sign of the “concern of the international artistic intelligentsia” about the direction in which the world is moving.

In an open letter in early September, Waters, 79, wrote that the West should stop supplying Ukraine with weapons and accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of tolerating “extreme nationalism,” before calling on him to end “this criminal war.”

Then he was declared “persona non grata” in Krakow, Poland, and his concerts were canceled.

Instead, last April, Pink Floyd released their first original song since 1994 in support of the Ukrainian people.

“Anti-Semite and pro-Putin to the core”

A few days ago, Polly Samson, one of the band’s songwriters and girlfriend of singer and guitarist David Gilmour, called Roger Waters an “anti-Semite” and “Putin apologist” on Twitter. He “completely” denied the allegations on his Twitter account, condemning the “inflammatory and completely inaccurate comments”.

Samson’s message apparently refers to an interview Waters gave to the Berliner Zeitung newspaper earlier this month, republished in translation on Waters’ website, in which he questioned whether “Putin (is) a bigger gangster than Joe Biden and all those who have dealt with American politicians since the Second World War,” and also says that Putin “rules cautiously, making decisions based on consensus within the government of the Russian Federation.”

In the interview, Waters also said that “lobbyists in Israel” tried to cancel his concerts in Germany and that “the Israelis are committing genocide”. Just as Britain did during our colonial period… We saw ourselves as inherently superior to the indigenous population, just like the Israelites in Palestine.”

He also expresses his continued support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and that he will continue to speak in Moscow “given that Moscow is not running an apartheid state based on the genocide of its indigenous people.”

Rogers has long been accused of anti-Semitism because of his repeated comparisons between the state of Israel and Nazi Germany. In 2013, for the New York Observer, Rabbi Shmuli Botich wrote to Waters that he had “no decency, no heart, no soul” to compare “Jews to the monsters who killed them.” In response, Waters admitted that “the Holocaust was brutal and heinous beyond our imagination” but that he “grieved” [s] the policies of the Israeli government in the occupied territories and Gaza” and that “he was not anti-Semitic”.

In 2017, German broadcasters canceled the broadcast of Waters’ concerts in Berlin and Cologne due to “accusations of anti-Semitism against him”.

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