A Feb. 9 op-ed in the Toronto-based National Post has drawn condemnation from the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies for glorifying Nazi sympathizers.
Lubomyr Luciuk, a Royal Military College of Canada political science professor, wrote in the piece, excerpted from his new book written along with Volodymyr Viatrovych, that Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed waging war against Ukraine would lead to the “de-Nazification” of the latter, particularly of those who were “members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) headed by Stepan Bandera.”
“While Soviet-era propaganda routinely portrayed members of this Ukrainian nationalist movement as war criminals, Nazi collaborators, fascists and so on, a trope regurgitated regularly by the Russian Federation from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the present, we certainly did not anticipate this overworked disinformation being deployed as an excuse for starting a large-scale war in 21st-century Europe,” Luciuk wrote.
Bandera assisted the Nazis, establishing two Ukrainian intelligence battalions in the German army and organizing units to help Germany set up a local government and police in Ukraine, according to the Yad Vashem website. “Bandera and his people considered the Soviets and the Jews their main enemies,” it states.
A 2014 NPR story stated that Bandera’s legacy is undergoing a “tug-of-war,” while also reporting, “Bandera’s Order of Ukrainian Nationalists also did some violent things in pursuit of sovereignty. Jews and Polish people were massacred.” (more...)
Canadian newspaper slammed for glorifying Nazi sympathizer
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