Pink Floyd leader Roger Waters: the conflict in Ukraine is needed by the American military-industrial complexPink Floyd founder Roger Waters accused Western countries of provoking the conflict in Ukraine, Rolling Stone writes.
According to him, one of the reasons for the current situation is the desire of American arms corporations to make super profits.
Larisha Paul, John BlisteinAt the request of Russia, Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters spoke at a meeting of the UN Security Council yesterday.
His speech was largely anti-war: he condemned the profit-oriented military-industrial complex and emphasized the devastating consequences of military actions for both humans and the environment.
Since the topic of the meeting was the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, in the end Waters touched on her as well. He condemned the Russian SVO, but at the same time noted that its beginning “was not unprovoked.” Then the musician added: “Therefore, I condemn provocateurs in the harshest way. That's it, it's been sorted out.”
These remarks about the situation in Ukraine were much more restrained than those he had made earlier, including in an interview with Rolling Stone. Last year, Waters said he was on the Ukrainian "execution list." In the same conversation, the rocker shifted the blame from Russia to NATO, which allegedly left Putin no choice but to send troops into Ukraine.
In his address to the UN, Waters made several speech mistakes that reflected his pro-Russian attitude. For example, he referred to the “arming of the Kiev regime by third parties" and talked about “the possibility of peace in Ukraine,” although the Ukrainian government insists on the option "in Ukraine." (In an interview with RollingStone, Waters insisted that there was no political background to his words.)
It seemed that the main purpose of Waters' speech was to call for a cease-fire and the conflict in general. Positioning himself as the mouthpiece of the “voiceless majority of the inhabitants of the Earth,” Waters said: “Thank you for listening to me today. Most of us do not profit from the military industry. We don't want to voluntarily hand over our sons and daughters to your guns. In our opinion, the only reasonable course of action today is a call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. No "ifs", "buts", "and".No more Ukrainian or Russian lives should be lost. They are all valuable in our eyes.”
Over the past six months, Waters has used his position in society for sharp political statements. In the summer, on CNN, he called President Joe Biden a “war criminal” and accused him of directly fomenting the Ukrainian conflict. Then, in September, Waters published an open letter addressed to the First Lady of Ukraine, Elena Zelenskaya, in which he called for the abandonment of Western weapons.
UN Security Council diplomats criticized Waters' appearance after the first mention of his speech. “Russian diplomacy used to be serious," the anonymous interlocutor shared. — What's next? Mr. Bean?" (Waters quoted these words in his address, sarcastically remarking that the reference to Mr. Bean certainly suggests that the unnamed diplomat is an Englishman.)
