Bold dot

Victor Yushchenko awarded Stepan Bandera the title of Hero of Ukraine

The new Russian ambassador, Mikhail Zurabov, is finally due to arrive in Ukraine this morning. He was appointed to this post back in August 2009, but President Dmitry Medvedev decided not to send the ambassador to his destination until there were signs of improving relations between Moscow and Kiev - in fact, until the defeat of President Viktor Yushchenko. And now, when the power in Ukraine is changing and the second round of presidential elections will take place on February 7, Mr. Zurabov intends, according to Russian and Ukrainian diplomats, to appear in the Ukrainian capital. He, however, will still need to present his credentials to the Ukrainian leader, and first send copies of them to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. The outgoing Ukrainian president, Viktor Yushchenko, insists that his name should appear on the certificates. But Moscow expects to accredit the new ambassador under the next leader. This became the subject of a dispute between Yushchenko and the Russian authorities.

Recently, the Ukrainian president, who dropped out of the struggle for power due to his failure in the first round of elections, caused a wave of indignation in Moscow for another reason. He awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine (posthumously) to the head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) Stepan Bandera. Mr. Yushchenko called his decree “a great achievement for Ukraine” and “a gift to millions of patriots.” He announced this on Friday, January 22, at the National Opera of Ukraine in Kyiv at a festive ceremony dedicated to Unity Day. The award was presented to Bandera's grandson, also named Stepan. In 2007, Yushchenko had already awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine to the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) Roman Shukhevych , marking the centenary of his birth.

This news was unanimously negatively received in Russia. Vice Speaker of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation Yuri Vorobyov told Interfax that Yushchenko's decision is “simply a shame and disgrace.” Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov considers this decision “pure paranoia.” And the chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots, Alexei Ostrovsky, said that “Yushchenko put an end to the series of actions against his own people and a sign of equality between himself and Bandera, who, as is known, actively collaborated with the fascists.”

In Ukrainian society, the declaration of nationalist Stepan Bandera, who was born in 1909 in the territory of what is now the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine, as a hero, caused a mixed reaction. Some politicians supported the presidential decree, but mostly this decision was perceived negatively. “Awarding the title of Hero of Ukraine to Stepan Bandera on the Day of Unity of Ukraine will not contribute to the unification of the country. This is a step towards an even greater split,” the press service of the Party of Regions said in a statement. They noted: “We must do everything to bring regions closer together, bring people closer together, and not throw new stones of discord at the people.”

Citizens also think differently. “I am not against honoring the memory of heroes. But now there are many other, more important problems. We need to raise the remains of the economy, and not remember Bandera, Petliura, Shukhevych and the like,” Evgeniy, a computer specialist from Kyiv, told Vremya Novostey. Yulia, a banking lawyer from Kherson, is also indignant: “I am against this. Ukrainian resistance fighters should be given benefits, but why create a split in society?”

However, in the west of Ukraine - in Ternopil, Lviv or the same Ivano-Frankivsk - other opinions are heard. The West has historically held nationalist views. In many cities there are streets named after the leaders of the nationalist movement, there are monuments to them, and museums are opened. The fathers and grandfathers of many local residents were members of nationalist formations, and this is their story. They still remember what methods Soviet security officers used after the war to eradicate the Ukrainian nationalist underground and fight the “forest brothers.” Some draw attention to the fact that during the war, Ukrainian nationalists only temporarily entered into an alliance with the Nazis, but in fact they fought against both the Bolsheviks and the fascists for the sake of one goal: gaining independence. The author of these lines had to hear more than once during trips to the west of Ukraine: “There is no longer either the Soviet Union or the Third Reich. But there is an independent Ukraine.”

Many people recall that in 1941 Stepan Bandera was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Germany, where he even spent several years in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, because the creation of an independent Ukraine was not part of the Nazis’ plans. By the way, Soviet general Dmitry Karbyshev and Stalin’s son Yakov Dzhugashvili were kept in the same concentration camp. After the war, Stepan Bandera settled in Munich, where in 1959 he was killed by KGB agent Bogdan Stashinsky, who shot him in the face with a stream of poisonous solution from a pistol. Bandera's grave is located in Munich.

Zakhar ZINCHENKO, Kyiv