 "Perfect Sense? From calling Putin a ‘gangster’ to calling out the West, how did Roger Waters flip?")
New Delhi: The famous co-founder of the rock band Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, has gone from calling Russia’s President Vladimir Putin a ‘gangster’ to blaming the West for the war in Ukraine, now approaching the one-year mark.
Under fire from Western commentators for his contrarian views, Waters won’t back down, however. His criticism of the West for bringing war to Ukraine is unrelenting.
‘Change of mind’
Waters wrote a letter to Putin soon after Russia launched its ‘Special Military Operation’ on February 24. He called the Russian leader a “gangster” for sending his army into Ukraine, sending millions running for refuge to the West.
Waters has had a change of mind, however. In an interview to the German paper Zeitung, Waters explained the change in his stance.
The West, Waters said, is supplying weapons to Ukraine only for profit. “Is Putin a bigger gangster than Joe Biden and all those in charge of American politics since World War II?”
The ‘unprovoked invasion’ narrative is just propaganda, says Waters, now convinced that Putin is not the despot the Western media presents him as but a “careful” administrator.
“According to independent voices I listen to, he (Putin) governs carefully, making decisions on the grounds of a consensus in the Russian Federation government.”
What the West calls aggression driven by hunger for land, Waters considers well founded in Russian security concerns.
“He (Putin) launched what he still calls a special military operation”. He launched it on the basis of reasons that if I have understood them well are: 1. We want to stop the potential genocide of the Russian-speaking population of the Donbas. 2. We want to fight Nazism in Ukraine.” he said,
Quick Reads
View AllThe roots of the very word Ukraine are in the Russian word for ‘Borderland’, said Waters. It was a part of Russian Empire for centuries, then was a constituent of the Soviet Union. The history of Ukraine as a part of Russia, he said, goes a long way back.
Waters points to the Russian-0speaking minority in Ukraine and its anxieties after the Maidan coup of 2014, saying that all Putin intends to achieve with his “special operation” is to protect the significant Russian minority in Ukraine that feels increasingly threatened which Moscow alleges was US backed.
“Putin has always stressed that he has no interest in taking over western Ukraine – or invading Poland or any other country across the border. What he is saying is: he wants to protect the Russian-speaking populations in those parts of Ukraine where the Russian-speaking populations feel under threat from the far right influenced post-Maidan Coup Governments in Kiev. A coup that is widely accepted as having been orchestrated by the US,” he said.
Interestingly, he echoed what many dissidents in the West have said, that the point of provoking Russia into a war was part of a plan to further weaken and destabilise Russia.
“They (West) would love to destroy Russia first,” added.
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