(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Frontman and co-founder of Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, had his concert tour canceled after receiving resounding criticism for his views on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
According to National File, all of the band’s concerts in Poland were canceled after the singer continually expressed his opposition to U.S. foreign aid and support for Ukraine.
Waters, 79, initially sparked the controversy in a letter to Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska.
In the letter, he explained how and why he opposed Western support—particularly in the form of military weapons—to extend the battle between Ukraine and Russia as long as possible.
“BBC.com quotes you as saying that “If support for Ukraine is strong, the crisis will be shorter.” Hmmm?” Water’s letter reads. “I guess that might depend on what you mean by ‘support for Ukraine’? If by ‘support for Ukraine’ you mean the West continuing to supply arms to the Kiev government’s armies, I fear you may be tragically mistaken.”
“Throwing fuel, in the form of armaments, into a fire fight, has never worked to shorten a war in the past, and it won’t work now, particularly because, in this case, most of the fuel is (a) being thrown into the fire from Washington DC, which is at a relatively safe distance from the conflagration, and (b) because the ‘fuel throwers’ have already declared an interest in the war going on for as long as possible.”
A few weeks after the letter was received, Waters announced that a local-level government official in Poland “threatened to hold a meeting asking the council to declare [him] ‘Persona non grata'” because of his efforts to keep the U.S from being involved in the conflict.
Waters also targeted President Biden and NATO for their hand in the situation.
“Why won’t the United States of America encourage [Volodymyr] Zelensky to negotiate, obviating the need for this horrific, horrendous war?” Waters said on CNN.
“This war is basically about the action and reaction of NATO pushing right up to the Russian border, which they promised they wouldn’t do when [Mikhail] Gorbachev negotiated the withdrawal of the USSR from the whole of Eastern Europe,” Waters concluded.
