Gérard Depardieu, close to Putin, calls for “stop arms and negotiate”

French actor Gérard Depardieu, close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, called for “stop arms and negotiate” in a statement to AFP on Tuesday, the sixth day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Russia and Ukraine have always been brotherly countries. I am against this fratricidal war. I say: ‘Stop the weapons and negotiate!'”, he declared. continues to deploy in an attempt to take control of Kyiv and that the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city not far from the Russian border, is bombarded by the Russian army, according to the governor of the region. French cinema, which has French and Russian nationalities, called AFP on the phone to make this statement. He had obtained a Russian passport in January 2013, against a background of disagreement with the tax policy of President François Hollande. “I find it normal to pay, but not to idiots who think they are doing good,” he said. in 2014 in the weekly Le Point. Since then, Gérard Depardieu has never ceased to praise his new homeland, Russia, a “great democracy”, and to praise Vladimir Putin, whom he notably compared to Pope John Paul II. The actor Pierre Richard, old accomplice of Gérard Depardieu on the screen (La Chèvre, Les Compères…), also pleaded for peace in a publication on Twitter. “Everyone, at their level, must campaign for peace, fraternity and a return to reason,” he wrote on Tuesday, saying that “the Ukrainian people […] who dies”. “I pity the Russian people, whom I love so much, dragged against their will into this conflict of total absurdity.”