Ukrainian glorification of Stepan Bandera draws criticism from even key ally: Peoples Dispatch

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A collage of a photo of a right-wing rally honoring Stepan Bandera and the Ukrainian parliament tweet on January 1, 2023. (Photo: via Labor Heartlands)

Ukraine’s support for neo-Nazi groups and its attempts to officially recognize pro-Nazi legions and Nazi collaborators in World War II have been strongly criticized by communists and other anti-fascist groups in the region. Even though kyiv supporters in Europe and North America have so far kept a complicit silence over the maneuvers, the latest move by the Ukrainian parliament, hailing the birthday of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, has drawn harsh criticism even from neighboring Poland, its staunch ally. in the ongoing war with Russia.

On January 1, a message celebrating the 114th birthday of Stepan Banderanotor, a Ukrainian far-right leader and World War II Nazi collaborator, was tweeted from the official account of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. According to reports, the tweet contained a quote from Stepan Bandera and a photo of the head of the Ukrainian armed forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, with a large portrait of the Nazi collaborator in the background. After receiving a lot of criticism, it was later deleted from the Verkhovna Rada’s Twitter account.

The tweet sparked spontaneous outrage in Poland, otherwise a strong supporter of kyiv and Volodymyr Zelensky. On January 2, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki denounced the glorification of Stepan Bandera by the Ukrainian parliament. On the same day, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz also criticized Ukrainian authorities for praising and quoting an anti-Semitic Nazi collaborator.

Speaking to the media on January 2, Morawiecki said, according to RT, that no nuance was possible that would make the continued glorification of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera acceptable, adding that Banderas nationalists had committed terrible crimes. He reportedly said that Poland would not tolerate the minimization of these crimes.

Successive governments that came to power in Ukraine following the 2014 anti-Russian Euromaidan coup have launched a virulent campaign of decommunization. They also attempted to normalize support for the far-right Ukrainian nationalist legions and their leaders, from World War II, who were Nazi collaborators and mass murderers of Jews, Poles and fellow Ukrainians. Neo-Nazi groups like Right Sector and the Azov Battalion have been active in post-Maidan Ukraine and continue to be active belligerents in the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.

Bandera was the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), a far-right ultra-nationalist Ukrainian militant group that collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, fought against the Soviets and carried out murders mass of ethnic Jews, Poles and pro-Soviet Ukrainians. After World War II, Bandera moved to West Germany and cooperated with Western intelligence services, including MI6, in their anti-Soviet activities.

In 2010, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko awarded Bandera the posthumous title Hero of Ukraine in order to appeal to hyper-nationalist sections of the country. Even this drew criticism from the EU, Poland, Israel, Russia and many other countries. Later, the decision to bestow the award on Bandera was reversed by President Viktor Yanukovych. In the aftermath of the 2014 Euromaidan coup that toppled pro-Russian Yanukovych, right-wing militias who consider Bandera a hero were given carte blanche in the country and backed by the governments of Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky . Since then, Ukrainian nationalists have regularly celebrated Banderas’ birthday on January 1 with torchlight marches and demonstrations.

On January 4, Roman Kononenko of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) told Peoples Dispatch that if anyone today is not yet able to draw a basic parallel between the accusations against Ukraine that it has become a neo-Nazi state and the state-level glorification in this country of the Nazi accomplice and bloody executioner of the peoples Stepan Bandera, then this person is either criminally stupid or deliberately overlooks the obvious.

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