Roger Waters Responds To Criticism Of War Comments

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Roger Waters on Sunday denied reports that a pair of concerts in Poland next year were cancelled by his management following criticism of comments he made about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“We haven’t,” the Pink Floyd co-founder wrote in a Facebook message, adding that if the shows are indeed cancelled, “it will be a sad loss for me, because I have been looking forward to sharing my message of love with the people of Poland, something I have been doing on many tours over a career that has lasted in excess of fifty years.”

It was reported over the weekend that Waters’ manager pulled the plug on the shows, which were scheduled for April 21 and 22 at Tauron Arena in Krakow.

Waters came under fire for an open letter he shared earlier this month to Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska in which he blamed “extreme nationalists” for putting Ukraine “on the path to this disastrous war.” He has also been publicly critical of countries supplying Ukraine with weapons and has accused NATO of provoking Russia.

Elected officials in Krakow are planning to vote next week on a proposal to declare Waters a persona non grata due to his position on the war.

Waters countered that the politician behind the resolution, Łukasz Wantuch, “seems to know nothing of my history of working, all my life, at some personal cost, in the service of human rights” and said Wantuch’s “draconian censoring of my work” is “not very democratic.”

On Monday, Waters posted another open letter – this time addressed to Russian president Vladimir Putin. He asked for an assurance that nuclear weapons won’t be used and called the invasion “a heinous war of aggression, provoked or not.”

Waters wrote: “I know some people who think you want to overrun the whole of Europe, starting with Poland and the rest of the Baltic states. If you do, f**k you, and we might as well all stop playing the desperately dangerous game of nuclear chicken that the hawks on both sides of the Atlantic seem so comfortable with, and have at it. Yup, just blow each other and the world to smithereens.

“I know, I know, the USA and NATO invade other sovereign countries at the drop of a hat, or for a few barrels of oil, but that doesn’t mean you should.”

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