The legendary Edson Arantes do Nascimento ‘Pelé’ asked Vladimir Putin on Wednesday to stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began in late February and has already left more than 4,000 dead among the civilian population.
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The message from what is considered by many to be the best footballer in history to the president of Russia was released before the start of the match in which the Ukrainian and Scottish teams in Glasgow within the qualifying playoff for the 2022 World Cup.
Pele’s letter to Putin
“In a few minutes, Ukraine is playing its first official match since the beginning of the conflict. I wrote this letter personally. I hope that the violence ends and that we can build a better world together,” Pelé said in a message posted on Instagram along with the photograph of the letter addressed to the Russian president.
“I want to take advantage of today’s match as an opportunity to make a request: stop this invasion. There are no arguments that justify this violence,” Pelé asked Putin in the letter.
A “perverse and unjustifiable” conflict
In the letter, ‘O Rei’ indicated that the difficult task of obtaining a place to play the World Cup in Qatar becomes “almost impossible” when there are so many lives at stake and pointed out that the conflict that exists after the invasion of Ukraine it is “wicked, unjustifiable, and leaves nothing behind but pain, fear, terror, and anguish.”
“When we met in the past and exchanged a big smile, accompanied by a long handshake, it was unimaginable that we could be as divided one day as we are today,” Pele said at the end of the letter.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, has already left a total of 4,074 dead in this country among the civilian population and another 4,826 injured, according to data released Tuesday by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human rights.
