Roger Waters writes letter to wife of Zelensky

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters on Monday urged Ukraine’s first lady to help stop the nation’s ongoing conflict with Moscow, dismissing the notion that Western arms supplies could pave the way to ending the hostilities.

In an open letter addressed to Elena Zelenskaya, the wife of President Vladimir Zelensky, the iconic rock star commented on her recent interview to BBC during which she argued that if support for Ukraine is strong the crisis will be shorter.

Waters said that if Zelenskaya was referring to Western arms supplies, she “may be tragically mistaken.” “Throwing fuel, in the form of armaments, into a firefight, has never worked to shorten a war in the past, and it won’t work now,” he noted, adding that most of the fuel is being thrown by the US, which, in his telling, wants the conflict to go on “for as long as possible.”

“Might it not be better to demand the implementation of your husband’s election promises and put an end to this deadly war?” he wrote, offering a reminder that Zelensky campaigned on a pledge to “end the civil war” in the Donbass and grant partial autonomy to Donetsk and Lugansk.

The Pink Floyd co-founder also alluded to the president’s promise to “ratify the Minsk II agreement,” which sought to establish a ceasefire between the Donbass republics and Kiev.

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Waters, however, suggested that the Ukrainian leader failed to deliver because these policies “didn’t sit well with certain political factions in Kiev,” who subsequently persuaded him to reverse his course and ignore “the will of the Ukrainian people.” As a result, he said, “forces of extreme nationalism” that had been lurking in the shadows have ruled Ukraine since then.

Meanwhile, the Pink Floyd frontman recognized that he might be mistaken in his conclusions and asked Zelenskaya to explain the situation to him if he is wrong. But if he is right, Waters requested that she help him in his “honest endeavors to persuade our leaders to stop the slaughter which serves only the interests of the ruling classes and extreme nationalists” in the West and Ukraine.

Waters’ latest remarks largely echo his August interview with CNN in which the England-born rock legend implied that US President Joe Biden is a “war criminal” because he is fueling the Ukraine conflict while refusing to encourage Kiev to negotiate peace.