Ukrainian UN diplomat tells Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters to keep to 'strumming guitar' after pushing Ukraine misinformation during council meeting

• Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters spoke on behalf of Russia at the UN security council Wednesday.
• He regurgitated conspiracies about the Ukraine war, calling it "illegal" in the same breath.

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters was called out for making conspiratorial comments about the war in Ukraine on Wednesday after he testified at a UN security council on behalf of Russian diplomats.

Phoning into the meeting from a Swiss mountaintop chalet, Waters said he was representing "four billion brothers and sisters" in sharing Russia's position on its war in Ukraine, which is nearing the one-year mark, according to the Guardian.

But in reality, Waters has spent years trafficking misinformation about the wars in Ukraine and Syria, and at the meeting, he was ceremoniously called out by Ukraine's UN representative.

During Wednesday's meeting, Waters struck a more flimsy tone, criticizing Russia on one hand and obfuscating its role on the other.

"The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation was illegal. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms," Waters said, per The Guardian. "Also, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was not unprovoked, so I also condemn the provocateurs in the strongest possible terms."

Waters' reference to "provocateurs" in Ukraine followed in line with misinformation he has pushed about the war in the past years, which included claiming to CNN that US President Joe Biden and NATO fueled the war in Ukraine. In a 2022 interview with Rolling Stone, Waters called evidence of Russian war crimes, "lies" and claimed that he had information indicating he was on a Ukrainian "kill list," referring to a list compiled by a far-right Ukrainian organization.

"I'm on a kill list that is supported by the Ukrainian government. I'm on the fucking list," Waters told Rolling Stone in October 2022. "But when they kill you, they write 'liquidated' across your picture. Well, I'm one of those fucking pictures."

In a February interview with The Berliner Zeitung, Waters said that Vladimir Putin "governs carefully, making decisions on the grounds of a consensus in the Russian Federation government," according to the Guardian.

Waters has also pushed conspiracies related to Syria and Russia's role in the Syrian civil war, calling the humanitarian response group The White Helmets, "fake." In 2018, he alleged that their rescue missions — such as ongoing ones in light of catastrophic earthquakes — are staged by jihadists for western media as propaganda to help overthrow the Syrian government, according to Haaretz.

He has also denied the existence of chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government and defended Russian bombardment in Syria, according to Rolling Stone. Waters was recently called a "Putin apologist" by the wife of Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, which the guitarist refuted.

At the meeting Wednesday, Russian UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzya said Waters had a "very precise analysis," and that he was one of the "most prominent activists of the contemporary anti-war movement."

But Ukrainian ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya didn't buy Waters' latest plea for propaganda.

"How sad for his former fans to see him accepting the role of just another brick in the wall – the wall of Russian disinformation and propaganda," Kyslytsya, who spoke last, said, per to The Guardian. "Keep strumming the guitar, Mr.Waters."