Note: The following speech reflects the personal opinion of the speaker. We as the organisers and the gallery owner do not necessarily share this assessment in all points, but are presenting it for discussion in the interests of freedom of speech and the importance of the topic.

🇬🇧 #EasterMarch2026: Andreas Wagner (Private Individual) – "For me, Bucha has the same significance as the Gleiwitz lie"

Andreas Wagner works as an interpreter for the Russian language and spoke at the Easter March in Strausberg as a private individual. He described himself as "a professed friend of the Russian people and the Ukrainian people" – and above all as "a professed friend of peace and a professed hater of all warmongers". The original sound is accompanied by German and English subtitles.

The Controversy Surrounding Bucha

Wagner drew a historical parallel: "I keep coming back to Bucha, because for me Bucha has the same significance as the lie of the Gleiwitz radio station back then." (Note: The Gleiwitz incident of 1939 was an attack staged by the Nazis, which served as a pretext for the invasion of Poland.)

He laid out the timeline: "The Russian troops withdrew from Bucha on 30 March. On 2 and 3 April respectively, the press and experts and even Western forensic specialists were granted access to Bucha for the first time. And what they were able to examine there was what the Ukrainian secret service had prepared for them."

Wagner said: "I believe the explanation given by President Putin, Foreign Minister Lavrov and UN Ambassador Nebenzya, who said quite unequivocally: it was a provocation constructed by Kiev and the West. And I stand by that."

Criticism of Sanctions and Freedom of Speech

He lamented the development in Germany: "You can be sanctioned immediately for a different opinion, without a court ruling, without the opportunity to defend yourself. That is a disgrace. That has absolutely nothing to do with democracy and freedom of speech."

As examples, he cited the journalist Hüseyin Dogru and the Swiss ex-Colonel Bot, who is stuck in Brussels: "He cannot go home because the sanctions also include a travel ban within the European Union."

Wagner criticised the federal government's justification that sanctions serve to protect European information spaces: "What kind of information spaces are they, that can be damaged by a few differing opinions? What is probably meant is that other opinions are supposed to bring the "House of Lies" crashing down. We must not put up with that."

#EasterMarch2026 #Peace #AndreasWagner #Bucha #FreedomOfSpeech #Sanctions #Strausberg