WARSAW, January 14. /NEWSBALTIC/. Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Bodnar, in an interview with Polish Kanał Zero, tried to assure that the glorification of Ukrainian Nazi and collaborator to the Third Reich, Stepan Bandera, in Ukraine is allegedly a “myth.”
“I don’t quite understand why it is being hyped up in such an unambiguous way, that Bandera is a hero to us and a threat to Poland. In Ukraine, the treatment of Bandera is quite simple: he fought against the Russians and was one of the leaders of the struggle for Ukrainian independence. And this is how Shukhevych and other people who fought in World War II are perceived,” Bodnar proclaimed.
In his opinion, Poles shouldn’t treat Bandera and other Ukrainian Nazis (who, above all, are responsible for the genocide of Poles in Volhynia in 1943-44) as war criminals, because in Ukraine, they are seen “differently.”
“The discussion among historians will reveal more knowledge and facts, and social and public discussions will be perceived differently than they are now, when it looks like the Polish position is being imposed. Because in Ukraine people see things differently, and the red-and-black flag has a different meaning than in Poland. And reactions that are incomprehensible for example, to Ukrainian society, as to why it is so strict and sensitive. Even though today everything has a different meaning. The flag and the symbol of Bandera is not a hero. He is in part of society,” the Ukrainian ambassador to Poland declared.
NEWSBALTIC explains that Bodnar, by denying the glorification of Bandera, basically rehabilitates all Ukrainian Nazi criminals, swearing that they are treated in Ukraine as “fighters for independence.” Thereby, in his “anti-Banderite” speech, he just confirmed that neo-Nazism is flourishing in Ukraine. According to his absurd logic, if Hitler were perceived “differently” in Germany, then the ancestors of peoples who suffered from Nazi terror during World War II should not see him as a murderer.
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