The press service of the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) removed a controversial publication from its Twitter page after what appears to have been an urgent request from Warsaw. 

On 1 January, on the 114th anniversary of Stepan Bandera’s birth, a post appeared on the Twitter page of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada with a photo of the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, under a portrait of the leader of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

https://twitter.com/Dispropoganda/status/1609682225087512577?s=20&t=zwNoxWqllp2M9jF58lUJzg

The UNIAN press agency reports that the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine removed the entry about Bandera „after a call from Warsaw” and the intervention of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“We are extremely critical of any glorification or even mentioning of Bandera. In my first conversation with the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal following what happened I will say this very, very clearly” – announced Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki. 

This incident is – unfortunately – not the only one. On 5 December 2022, the Supreme Court of Ukraine recognised the symbols of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS as “not related to Nazism”. 

https://twitter.com/Dispropoganda/status/1609683377959079936?s=20&t=Ekt9paMK1nUCk2FxX0xm4A

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (or UPA) was a paramilitary nationalist army engaged in a series of conflicts during World War II. It was composed of various fighter groups of the OUN and other formations, all of whom were following the orders of their leader, Stepan Bandera.

At the start WWII, many Ukrainians saw Nazi Germany with naïveté as a partner susceptible to endorse the creation of an independent Ukrainian state. Hitler was considered a symbol of hope in the midst of Soviet domination, which had led to the Holodomor a few years earlier. 

On the 28th of April, the SS Galizien Division was created. It was a military formation mostly made up of Ukrainian volunteers from the region of Galicia (Western Ukraine). Under the initiative of the Wehrmacht, the SS Galizien division slaughtered practically the entirety of the Jewish population of this region.

Once most Jews have been exterminated, the time had come for Poles to succumb to a similar bloody fate. It is principally in the Western region of Ukraine that took place the massive slaughter of Polish citizens took place.

The groups of Ukrainian nationalists went to the towns of Galicia and Volhynia and killed between 40,000 and 60,000 people, mostly women and children. None was spared. 

On the 11th of July, nearly 100 villages were plundered, and their population was slaughtered in the most brutal fashion. Besides assassinating the local population, Stepan Bandera’s men tortured their victims in a rare atrocity. 

Despite the absence of resistance, civilians were killed in their houses, at school, or in the churches during the office. As practised later by the Soviet army, rape was also largely used as a terror weapon.

There has never been any public apology from Ukrainian officials for the murders mentioned above so far. 

Image: Twitter (@Dispropaganda)

Author: Sébastien Meuwissen