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Some Glory! Some Heroes! (Still Walkin’ the Snake in Ukraine)

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COMMENT:We have spo­ken repeat­ed­ly about the Nazi tract “Ser­pen­t’s Walk,” in which the Third Reich goes under­ground, buys into the opin­ion-form­ing media and, even­tu­al­ly, takes over.

Hitler, the Third Reich and their actions are glo­ri­fied and memo­ri­al­ized.

Some­thing sim­i­lar is hap­pen­ing today in Ukraine.

In 2015, a book was pub­lished exam­in­ing the life of Stepan (also translit­er­at­ed as “Stephan”) Ban­dera, the Ukrain­ian fas­cist and Third Reich ally whose polit­i­cal heirs ascend­ed to pow­er in Ukraine through the Maid­an coup.

We have repeat­ed­ly made the point that the dimen­sions of offi­cial lying in the West were of tru­ly Orwellian proportions–documented World War II his­to­ry was being dis­missed as “Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da” or “Krem­lin pro­pa­gan­da.”

” . . . But thanks to Grze­gorz Rossolinski-Liebe’s Stepan Ban­dera: The Life and After­life of a Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ist, it now seems clear: those ter­ri­ble Rus­sians were right. . . Although Ban­dera and his fol­low­ers would lat­er try to paint the alliance with the Third Reich as no more than ‘tac­ti­cal,’ an attempt to pit one total­i­tar­ian state against anoth­er, it was in fact deep-root­ed and ide­o­log­i­cal. Ban­dera envi­sioned the Ukraine as a clas­sic one-par­ty state with him­self in the role of führer, or provid­nyk, and expect­ed that a new Ukraine would take its place under the Nazi umbrel­la, much as Jozef Tiso’s new fas­cist regime had in Slo­va­kia or Ante Pavelic’s in Croa­t­ia. . . .”

Indeed. This is the point we have been mak­ing for many years.

The Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues its rever­sal of the doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of World War II: An exhib­it cel­e­brat­ing “Ukrain­ian inde­pen­dence” rev­els in the OUN/B, Nazi-allied forces that ascend­ed in Ukraine after the Third Reich’s inva­sion of the Sovi­et Union.

In addi­tion, the offi­cial salute of the OUN/B is set to become the offi­cial salute of the Ukrain­ian army. ” . . . . ‘Glo­ry to Ukraine! – Glo­ry to the Heroes!’ is a slo­gan of the UPA, the Ukraine Rebel Army who fought on the side of the Nazis. The slo­gans, their ori­gin, and his­to­ry are well known in Ukraine. . . . Present neo-Nazi Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary for­ma­tions estab­lished by order of the Ukrain­ian author­i­ties appro­pri­at­ed the slo­gan from the end of 2013 onward. Now, the Ukrain­ian Nazi collaborator’s greet­ing will become the offi­cial salute in that country’s army. . . .”

Addi­tion­al per­spec­tive on the phys­i­cal, polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal real­i­ty under­ly­ing the “Glo­ry to Ukraine–Glory to the Heroes” is the slo­gan’s dis­play on a mon­u­ment to the mas­sacre of the 600 res­i­dents of the Pol­ish town of Janowa Dolina by the UPA. ” . . . . On the night of April 22–23 (Good Fri­day), 1943, the Ukraini­ans from the Ukrain­ian Insur­gent Army, togeth­er with local peas­ants, attacked Janowa Dolina. Some 600 peo­ple, includ­ing chil­dren and the elder­ly, were bru­tal­ly mur­dered (see Mas­sacres of Poles in Vol­hy­nia). Most homes were burned to the ground and the set­tle­ment desert­ed. The per­pe­tra­tors, com­mand­ed by Ivan Lytwynchuk (aka Dubowy) exer­cised rare cru­el­ty. Poles, unpre­pared and caught by sur­prise, were hacked to death with axes, burned alive, and impaled (includ­ing chil­dren). The mur­der­ers did not spare any­one, regard­less of age and sex. Ger­man gar­ri­son, num­ber­ing around 100 sol­diers, did not act and remained in its bar­racks. After the first wave of mur­ders, the Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists start­ed search­ing the hos­pi­tal. They car­ried its Ukrain­ian patients away from the build­ing, while Pol­ish patients were burned alive.[2] Dr Alek­sander Baki­nows­ki, togeth­er with his assis­tant Jan Borysow­icz, were hacked to death on the square in front of the hos­pi­tal. In sev­er­al cas­es, Ukraini­ans were mur­dered for try­ing to hide their Pol­ish neigh­bours. Petro Mirchuk, Ukrain­ian his­to­ri­an, count­ed sev­er­al hun­dred mas­sa­cred Poles, with only eight UPA mem­bers killed. . . .”

 To put the salute of the bru­tal mur­der­ers of the res­i­dents of the town on a mon­u­ment com­mem­o­rat­ing the mas­sacre is sur­re­al.

It is stun­ning to take stock of the open cel­e­bra­tion of the OUN/B’s Nazi alliance by the insti­tu­tions of the Maid­an gov­ern­ment, includ­ing cel­e­bra­tions of atroc­i­ties like Janowa Dolina:

  • Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko laid a wreath at the site of the Babi Yar Mas­sacre, hon­or­ing the OUN/B. The Schutz­mannschaft, who did much of the dirty work at Babi Yar, were culled from the ranks of the UPA, the mil­i­tary wing of the OUN/B.
  • The city of Lviv (Lvov) in West­ern Ukraine has estab­lished Skhukhevy­ch­fest, to hon­or Roman Schukhevych, who led the Nachti­gall Bat­tal­ion in their mas­sacre of the Jew­ish cit­i­zens of that city. The “fest” coin­cides with the date of the com­mence­ment of the exe­cu­tion.
  • Ukraine has estab­lished a gov­ern­ment min­istry to stand World War II his­to­ry on its head–the Orwellian-titled Insti­tute of Nation­al Mem­o­ry.
  • The lus­tra­tion laws for­bid neg­a­tive com­men­tary about the UPA or the OUN/B.

Key Ukrain­ian nation­al secu­ri­ty per­son­nel have giv­en hard proof of their Nazi ori­en­ta­tion, includ­ing:

  • For­mer Ukrain­ian intel­li­gence offi­cer Vasi­ly Vovk, who called for the exter­mi­na­tion of Ukraine’s Jews on his Face­book page. (Vovk was in charge of the “inves­ti­ga­tion” of the down­ing of Malaysian Air­lines flight MH17.)
  • In FTR #1024, we not­ed that Ana­toliy Matios–Ukraine’s top mil­i­tary pros­e­cu­tor and piv­otal­ly involved in the inves­ti­ga­tion of the Maid­an sniper attacks, has man­i­fest­ed Nazi-style anti-Semi­tism.

UPDATE: Pter­rafractyl has updat­ed our inquiry, not­ing that not only has the UPA salute become the offi­cial salute of the Ukrain­ian army, but it has become the offi­cial salute of the police as well. As dis­cussed in FTR #‘s 1004 and 1014, the fas­cist Svo­bo­da Par­ty’s mili­tia, C14, and the Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion’s Nation­al Druzhy­na mili­tia have been incor­po­rat­ed into the Ukrain­ian police estab­lish­ment. This is not sur­pris­ing since Vadim Troy­an, the for­mer Deputy Com­man­der of the Azov Bat­tal­ion became: head of the Kyiv police, act­ing head of the Nation­al Police and then Deputy Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter to OUN/B acolyte Arsen Avakov, the main patron of the Azov Bat­tal­ion.

1. “Nazi Col­lab­o­ra­tor Greet­ing Becomes Offi­cial Ukraine Army Salute” by Mordechai Sones; IsraelNationalNews.com; 08/16/2018

August 24th, Ukrain­ian Inde­pen­dence Day, will see a cer­e­mo­ny intro­duc­ing the country’s new offi­cial army salute, as pre­scribed by Ukraine’s Pres­i­den­tial decree: Glo­ry to Ukraine! – Glo­ry to the Heroes!’ We have con­sult­ed with the Min­is­ter of Defense, Nation­al Secu­ri­ty and Defense Coun­cil, Gov­ern­ment and I have decid­ed that start­ing from August 24 these words will be heard for the first time as part of the offi­cial mil­i­tary parade cer­e­mo­ny on the Inde­pen­dence Day of Ukraine,” Petro Poroshenko was quot­ed say­ing on the Ukraine President’s offi­cial site.

Glo­ry to Ukraine! – Glo­ry to the Heroes! is a slo­gan of the UPA, the Ukraine Rebel Army who fought on the side of the Nazis. The slo­gans, their ori­gin, and his­to­ry are well known in Ukraine, although the President’s web­site does not make men­tion of these. Present neo-Nazi Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary for­ma­tions estab­lished by order of the Ukrain­ian author­i­ties appro­pri­at­ed the slo­gan from the end of 2013 onward. Now, the Ukrain­ian Nazi collaborator’s greet­ing will become the offi­cial salute in that country’s army. . . .

. . . . The Head of State also not­ed the new mil­i­tary greet­ings will be enshrined offi­cial­ly in the doc­u­ments after the begin­ning of the Verk­hov­na Rada‘s reg­u­lar ses­sion and Parliament’s cor­re­spond­ing deci­sion, as it requires changes in par­tic­u­lar to statutes of all Armed Forces of Ukraine troops. But after com­ple­tion of prop­er pro­ce­dures, “these words and this greet­ing will become the offi­cial mil­i­tary greet­ings of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”. . . .

2. “Janowa Dolina Mas­sacre;” Wikipedia

The Janowa Dolina mas­sacre took place on 23 April 1943 in the vil­lage of Janowa Dolina, (now Bazal­tove, Ukraine) dur­ing occu­pa­tion of Poland in World War II. Before the Nazi-Sovi­et inva­sion of the Pol­ish Sec­ond Repub­lic, Janowa Dolina was a mod­el set­tle­ment built in the Kostopol Coun­ty of the Wołyń Voivode­ship by work­ers of the Pol­ish State Basalt Quar­ry. The town was inhab­it­ed by 2,500 peo­ple. Its name, which trans­lates as the “Jan’s Val­ley” in Pol­ish, came from the Pol­ish king Jan Kaz­imierz, who report­ed­ly hunt­ed in the Vol­hyn­ian forests, and after hunt­ing — rest­ed on the shore of the Horyń (Horyn) Riv­er. The town was destroyed dur­ing World War II by Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists who mur­dered most of its Pol­ish pop­u­la­tion includ­ing women and chil­dren. . . .

. . . . In June 1941, Nazi Ger­many attacked the Sovi­et Union. Janowa Dolina was added to the Reich­skom­mis­sari­at Ukraine. As Vol­hy­nia was the area of activ­i­ty for var­i­ous Ukrain­ian nation­al­ist groups whose aim was to cleanse the land of Poles and Jews, the settlement’s fate was inevitable. On the night of April 22–23 (Good Fri­day), 1943, the Ukraini­ans from the Ukrain­ian Insur­gent Army, togeth­er with local peas­ants, attacked Janowa Dolina. Some 600 peo­ple, includ­ing chil­dren and the elder­ly, were bru­tal­ly mur­dered (see Mas­sacres of Poles in Vol­hy­nia). Most homes were burned to the ground and the set­tle­ment desert­ed.

The per­pe­tra­tors, com­mand­ed by Ivan Lytwynchuk (aka Dubowy) exer­cised rare cru­el­ty. Poles, unpre­pared and caught by sur­prise, were hacked to death with axes, burned alive, and impaled (includ­ing chil­dren). The mur­der­ers did not spare any­one, regard­less of age and sex. Ger­man gar­ri­son, num­ber­ing around 100 sol­diers, did not act and remained in its bar­racks. After the first wave of mur­ders, the Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists start­ed search­ing the hos­pi­tal. They car­ried its Ukrain­ian patients away from the build­ing, while Pol­ish patients were burned alive.[2] Dr Alek­sander Baki­nows­ki, togeth­er with his assis­tant Jan Borysow­icz, were hacked to death on the square in front of the hos­pi­tal. In sev­er­al cas­es, Ukraini­ans were mur­dered for try­ing to hide their Pol­ish neigh­bours. Petro Mirchuk, Ukrain­ian his­to­ri­an, count­ed sev­er­al hun­dred mas­sa­cred Poles, with only eight UPA mem­bers killed. . . .

3. In 2015, a book was pub­lished exam­in­ing the life of Stepan Ban­dera, the Ukrain­ian fas­cist and Third Reich ally whose polit­i­cal heirs ascend­ed to pow­er in Ukraine through the Maid­an coup.

We have repeat­ed­ly made the point that the dimen­sions of offi­cial lying in the West were of tru­ly Orwellian proportions–documented World War II his­to­ry was being dis­missed as “Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da” or “Krem­lin pro­pa­gan­da.”

” . . . But thanks to Grze­gorz Rossolinski-Liebe’s Stepan Ban­dera: The Life and After­life of a Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ist, it now seems clear: those ter­ri­ble Rus­sians were right. . . Although Ban­dera and his fol­low­ers would lat­er try to paint the alliance with the Third Reich as no more than “tac­ti­cal,” an attempt to pit one total­i­tar­ian state against anoth­er, it was in fact deep-root­ed and ide­o­log­i­cal. Ban­dera envi­sioned the Ukraine as a clas­sic one-par­ty state with him­self in the role of führer, or provid­nyk, and expect­ed that a new Ukraine would take its place under the Nazi umbrel­la, much as Jozef Tiso’s new fas­cist regime had in Slo­va­kia or Ante Pavelic’s in Croa­t­ia. . . .

Indeed. This is the point we have been mak­ing all along.

“Who Was Stepan Ban­dera?” by Daniel Lazare; Jacobin Mag­a­zine; 9/24/2015.

. . . . . The Nazi inva­sion of the Sovi­et Union, which the OUN lead­er­ship seems to have got­ten wind of months ahead of time, was the moment they had been wait­ing for. Not only did it promise to free the Ukraine from Sovi­et con­trol, but it also held out the prospect of uni­fy­ing all Ukraini­ans in a sin­gle state. The dream of a greater Ukraine would thus be real­ized.

A month ear­lier, Ban­dera and his chief lieu­tenants — Stepan Lenkavs’kyi, Stepan Shukhevych, and Iaroslav Stets’ko — had put the fin­ish­ing touch­es on an inter­nal par­ty doc­u­ment enti­tled “The Strug­gle and Activ­i­ties of the OUN in Wartime,” a to-do list for when the Wehrma­cht crossed the Sovi­et bor­der.

It called on mem­bers to take advan­tage of the “favor­able sit­u­a­tion” posed by a “war between Moscow and oth­er states” to cre­ate a nation­al rev­o­lu­tion that would draw up all Ukraine in its vor­tex. It con­ceived of rev­o­lu­tion as a great purifi­ca­tion process in which “Mus­covites, Poles, and Jews” would be “destroyed . . . in par­tic­u­lar those who pro­tect the [Sovi­et] regime.” Although the OUN regard­ed the Nazis as allies, the doc­u­ment stressed that OUN activists should com­mence the rev­o­lu­tion as soon as pos­si­ble so as present the Wehrma­cht with a fait accom­pli:

We treat the com­ing Ger­man army as the army of allies. We try before their com­ing to put life in order, on our own as it should be. We inform them that the Ukrain­ian author­ity is already estab­lished, it is under the con­trol of the OUN under the lead­er­ship of Stepan Ban­dera; all mat­ters are reg­u­lated by the OUN and the local author­i­ties are ready to estab­lish friend­ly rela­tions with the army, in order to fight togeth­er against Moscow.

The doc­u­ment con­tin­ued that “it is per­mis­si­ble to liq­ui­date unde­sir­able Poles . . . NKVD peo­ple, inform­ers, provo­ca­teurs . . . all impor­tant Ukraini­ans who, in the crit­i­cal time, would try to make ‘their pol­i­tics’ and there­by threat­en the deci­sive mind-set of the Ukrain­ian nation,” adding that only one par­ty would be per­mit­ted under the new order — the OUN.

Although Ban­dera and his fol­low­ers would lat­er try to paint the alliance with the Third Reich as no more than “tac­ti­cal,” an attempt to pit one total­i­tar­ian state against anoth­er, it was in fact deep-root­ed and ide­o­log­i­cal. . . .

4. “Exhi­bi­tion in Ukrain­ian Par­lia­ment Glo­ri­fies Nazi Col­lab­o­ra­tors” by Mordechai Sones; IsraelNationalNews.com; 08/07/2018

An exhi­bi­tion inside the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment, the Rada last week glo­ri­fied the lead­ing Ukrain­ian Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors of World War II.Infor­ma­tion on the exhi­bi­tion is avail­able on the Ukraine Parliament’s offi­cial web­site in Ukrain­ian and Russ­ian, but on the Rada’s Eng­lish-lan­guage web­site the infor­ma­tion is absent.

The Ukrain­ian site says, “A spe­cial exhi­bi­tion has been orga­nized in the par­lia­ment of Ukraine in Kiev. The dates of the exhi­bi­tion: July 3- July 6, 2018. The name of the exhi­bi­tion: Cel­e­brat­ing the Restora­tion of the Ukrain­ian State­hood, June 30, 1941–2018.

“The orga­niz­ers of the exhi­bi­tion: All-Ukrain­ian char­i­ta­ble Sobor­nist foun­da­tion, Inter­na­tion­al char­i­ta­ble Jaroslav Stezko foun­da­tion, MP Jury Shuchevich.”

Jaroslav Stezko was leader of Stepan Bandera’s Orga­ni­za­tion of the Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists (OUN) mil­i­tary brigades from 1968 until his death. A fer­vent Ukrain­ian Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tor, in 1941 dur­ing the Nazi Ger­man inva­sion of the Sovi­et Union, he was self-pro­claimed tem­po­rary head of the osten­si­bly inde­pen­dent Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment declared by Stepan Ban­dera. Stet­sko was the head of the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations from the time of its foun­da­tion until 1986, the year of his death.

MP Jury Shuchevich is the octo­ge­nar­i­an son of Roman Shuchevich, who was the one of the lead­ers of the infa­mous the SS Nachti­gall bat­tal­ion. SS Cap­tain Roman Shuchevich was award­ed the Nazi Iron Cross for his “exploits” dur­ing the Sec­ond World War in Ukraine and was an Abwehr agent from 1926.

“The fact that the son of the polit­i­cal leader of the SS Nachti­gall bat­tal­ion and the bear­er of the Nazi Iron Cross is the most respect­ed – accord­ing to Ukrain­ian author­i­ties – mem­ber of their par­lia­ment is telling all by itself,” wrote co-founder and Pres­i­dent of the Rogatchi Foun­da­tion Dr. Inna Rogatchi. “He spent many decades in the Sovi­et Gulag and is clear­ly moti­vat­ed against any­thing Russ­ian – he even added a new Ukrain­ian name to his exist­ing name of Jury. But it’s ridicu­lous to see how a per­son­al vendet­ta has dri­ven the pol­i­cy of a coun­try with a pop­u­la­tion of 45 mil­lion.

“Rec­og­nized in his coun­try as a polit­i­cal heavy-weight, Jury Shuchevich was asked recent­ly by the very pro-gov­ern­men­tal Kyiv Post Eng­lish-lan­guage news­pa­per, ‘is it not too much glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of the Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists, with the his­tor­i­cal­ly known record of their activ­i­ties?’ The senior MP of the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment respond­ed: ‘It’s a very com­pli­cat­ed ques­tion which has to be exam­ined in full detail. But what about those Jews? Those ones who were in Juden­rats, and who were after their own peo­ple in ghet­tos? I saw it with my own eyes. But Jews don’t like to talk about it’.”

The exhi­bi­tion shows blown-up images from pro-Nazi news­pa­pers dat­ed June 1941 herald­ing “the Act of estab­lish­ing the Ukrain­ian state”, after Nazi Ger­many occu­pied Ukraine. There are also enlarged images of doc­u­ments issued by the Ukrain­ian Nazi col­lab­o­rat­ing bod­ies at the time, and large por­traits of the lead­ing Ukrain­ian Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors – Ban­dera, Shuhe­vich, Stezko, and Kono­valetz who all are pre­sent­ed as heroes. The col­ors of the exhi­bi­tion are those of the cur­rent Ukrain­ian flag.

The exhibition’s stand fea­tures the fol­low­ing text from the Act of the Estab­lish­ing of the Ukrain­ian State dat­ed June 30, 1941:

“3. New­ly estab­lished Ukrain­ian State will close­ly co-oper­ate with Nation­al Social­ist Great Ger­many under the lead­er­ship of its Leader Adolf Hitler build­ing the New Order in Europe and the world”.

This text has become the clas­sic doc­u­ment on the Nazi char­ac­ter of Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists and their bod­ies.

Many oth­er doc­u­ments at the exhi­bi­tion open­ly glo­ri­fy Nazism.

At the exhibition’s open­ing, cur­rent lead­ers of Ukraine’s nation­al­is­tic orga­ni­za­tions spoke, along with open­ly pro-Nazi MP Jury Shuchevich, son of the SS cap­tain and the com­man­der of the Nachti­gall divi­sion Roman Shuchevich.

In his open­ing speech, MP Jury Schuchevich said: “The fact of us hav­ing an inde­pen­dence today, in truth, is a huge cor­ner­stone of the edi­fice called today the Ukrain­ian State. That huge cor­ner­stone was laid into this edi­fice by this very strug­gle (of the Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists) and by these very peo­ple (Ukrain­ian Nazi-col­lab­o­ra­tors), and I beseech you all very much to vis­it this exhi­bi­tion which the Con­gress of the Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists is car­ry­ing on in com­mem­o­ra­tion of this date.” In any oth­er offi­cial sources the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the pro-Nazi Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists Con­gress is not men­tioned.

The offi­cial site of the Ukraine Par­lia­ment said: “In the begin­ning of the Sec­ond World War, OUN under Stepan Bandera’s lead­er­ship start­ed prepar­ing for re-estab­lish­ing Ukraine’s inde­pen­dence. As the Ger­man-Bol­she­vic War (Nazi term for WWII used today by Ukraine’s Par­lia­ment) ignit­ed, mobile OUN groups went to Ukraine to estab­lish there Ukrain­ian pow­er.

“On June 30th, Nachti­gall divi­sion under the com­mand of Roman Shuchevich and OUN group under the com­mand of Jaroslav Stazko entered Lvov with their first aim to announce re-estab­lish­ing Ukrain­ian state­hood. The Act of re-estab­lish­ing Ukrain­ian state­hood declared the inde­pen­dent pol­i­cy of Ukraine. By it, it has been stat­ed to the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that the Ukrain­ian peo­ple is con­tent nei­ther with an impe­r­i­al occu­pa­tion, nor with a com­mu­nist one … it will con­tin­ue its strug­gle to the end.”

Upon enter­ing Lvov, the Nachti­gall divi­sion and OUN forces ini­ti­at­ed and con­duct­ed the unprece­dent­ed­ly hor­rif­ic mas­sacre of Lvov’s Jews known in his­to­ry as Lvov mas­sacre of June-July, 1941 in which at least sev­en-thou­sand Jews were bar­bar­i­cal­ly mur­dered. The exhi­bi­tion in Ukraine’s Par­lia­ment opened on July 3rd, the peak day of the hor­ren­dous Lvov mas­sacre, the one of the most ter­ri­ble geno­cides of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry.

At the same time, a sim­i­lar exhi­bi­tion called Fight­ers for the Ukrain­ian State opened at the Nation­al His­to­ry of Ukraine Muse­um in Kiev. That exhi­bi­tion was cer­e­mo­ni­al­ly vis­it­ed by Vice Prime Min­is­ter Vyach­eslav Kir­ilenko, as stat­ed on the Ukraine government’s offi­cial web­site, who said: “It’s only rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly when we start­ed to get famil­iar with his­to­ry works, art works cel­e­brat­ing UPA (Ukrain­ian Patri­ot­ic Army, Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors and war crim­i­nals). It was a long way for Ukraine to rec­og­nize UPA, which is our com­mon his­to­ry.”

Dr. Rogatchi respond­ed to the exhi­bi­tion: “Just imag­ine that inside the Bun­destag today there would be a non-crit­i­cal exhi­bi­tion demon­strat­ing in full seri­ous­ness and with pride the Third Reich news­pa­pers from 1941 on col­or­ful big stands with cap­tions com­ment­ing that those slo­gans, poli­cies, events, doc­u­ments, and peo­ple who per­pe­trat­ed them were all ‘assur­ing and strength­en­ing Germany’s Inde­pen­dence and state­hood.

“Imag­ine the same thing at any par­lia­ment of any Euro­pean coun­try or 90% of the coun­tries world-wide, for that mat­ter. Imag­ine this being done at the Unit­ed Nations or UNESCO. They’d be called lunatics, quite cor­rect­ly.

“But this is exact­ly what’s going on today inside the Ukraine Par­lia­ment, and the world’s lead­ers are shy to con­demn. Or per­haps they’re unaware of it. After all, there were ‘just’ three big stands for ‘just’ four days, and the exhi­bi­tion wasn’t pub­lic, it was inside the Par­lia­ment, and one needs jour­nal­ist accred­i­ta­tion to get inside to be hon­ored to view this sheer Nazi salu­ta­tion.

“I’d like to hear the com­ment and reac­tion of Chan­cel­lor Merkel, the big patron of the cur­rent Ukraine and its lead­er­ship to that open glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of Hitler and Nazism as dis­played in the par­lia­ment of Ukraine. And I hope the State of Israel won’t tol­er­ate such open dec­la­ra­tion of pro-Nazi sym­pa­thies by the par­lia­ment of Ukraine.

“By orga­niz­ing and exhibit­ing this open glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of Nazism, and iden­ti­fy­ing Ukrain­ian state­hood with it as done in this exhi­bi­tion, the Ukrain­ian leg­is­lat­ing body and gov­ern­ment rep­re­sent­ed by its Vice Prime Min­is­ter who vis­it­ed the exhi­bi­tion with a sup­port­ive speech, declared to the world who they are: Fol­low­ers of the Nazis. Peri­od. And they should be treat­ed like that, world-wide and offi­cial­ly. They asked for it them­selves. Nev­er before have the Ukrain­ian pro-Nazis gone that far. When giv­en free reign they enjoy it. And Europe and the rest of the world stay silent, again. Not one or anoth­er Nazi-glo­ri­fy­ing exhi­bi­tion in the mod­ern-day Ukraine, which is a dai­ly real­i­ty there, but Europe’s and the world’s ongo­ing numb­ness regard­ing it is out­ra­geous and intol­er­a­ble,” Rogatchi said.

Discussion

One comment for “Some Glory! Some Heroes! (Still Walkin’ the Snake in Ukraine)”

  1. It’s offi­cial: Ukraine’s par­lia­ment just approved the bill mak­ing “Glo­ry to Ukraine!” the offi­cial mil­i­tary salute. Also, the law on the the Nation­al Police was also amend­ed to make “Glo­ry to Ukraine!” the offi­cial greet­ing and part­ing for Ukraine’s police offi­cers.:

    112 Inter­na­tion­al

    Ukraine’s par­lia­ment approves “Glo­ry to Ukraine!” new army chant
    A word “com­rade” in the statute of the inter­nal ser­vice of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and drill reg­u­la­tions was replaced by “Mis­ter or Madam”

    13:48, 4 Octo­ber 2018

    The Verk­hov­na Rada of Ukraine adopt­ed the draft law #9036 that pro­vides the imple­men­ta­tion of the mil­i­tary salute “Glo­ry to Ukraine!” and the reply “Glo­ry to Heroes!” at the sec­ond read­ing and gen­er­al­ly. 271 MPs vot­ed in the affir­ma­tive as 112 Ukraine broad­cast­ed.

    The salute “Glo­ry to Ukraine!” and the reply “Glo­ry to Heroes!” is pro­vid­ed in the drill reg­u­la­tions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

    More­over, the rit­u­al of the rais­ing of the state flag of Ukraine was reg­u­lar­ized in the statute of the inter­nal ser­vice of the Armed Forces. Accord­ing to the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion, dur­ing the deliv­ery of the flag, a per­son wel­comes the per­son­nel with its receiv­ing and the sol­diers reply with tripled “Glo­ry”. The law pro­vides that dur­ing the deliv­ery of the flag, a per­son wel­comes the per­son­nel with the words “Glo­ry to Ukraine!” and they reply “Glo­ry to Heroes!”.

    Dur­ing the elab­o­ra­tion of the law for the sec­ond read­ing, a word “com­rade” was replaced by “Mr. or Madam” in the statute of the inter­nal ser­vice of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and drills char­ter of the forces.

    Also, the law on the Nation­al Police was amend­ed. Accord­ing to it, when the police offi­cers are in line for the greet­ing of the leader or senior offi­cer, when they hear the salute “Glo­ry to Ukraine!” they reply “Glo­ry to Heroes”. The same actions take place dur­ing the part­ing.

    ...

    As it was report­ed ear­li­er, the bill was reg­is­tered in the Par­lia­ment by Ukraine’s Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko on Sep­tem­ber 3.

    The Com­mit­tee on Nation­al Secu­ri­ty and Defence rec­om­mend­ed the Par­lia­ment to sup­port the bill on the intro­duc­tion of a mil­i­tary greet­ing “Glo­ry to Ukraine” and reply “Glo­ry to the Heroes!” as a basis with a speedy prepa­ra­tion to the sec­ond read­ing.

    This new mil­i­tary slo­gan has drawn crit­i­cism for its links to World War II-era nation­al­ist orga­ni­za­tions.

    ———-

    “Ukraine’s par­lia­ment approves “Glo­ry to Ukraine!” new army chant”; 112 Inter­na­tion­al; 10/04/2018

    “The Verk­hov­na Rada of Ukraine adopt­ed the draft law #9036 that pro­vides the imple­men­ta­tion of the mil­i­tary salute “Glo­ry to Ukraine!” and the reply “Glo­ry to Heroes!” at the sec­ond read­ing and gen­er­al­ly. 271 MPs vot­ed in the affir­ma­tive as 112 Ukraine broad­cast­ed.”

    And even the Nation­al Police have to use this salute when meet­ing the leader or senior offi­cer. And when part­ing. It’s like a fas­cist ‘alo­ha’ for the police:

    Also, the law on the Nation­al Police was amend­ed. Accord­ing to it, when the police offi­cers are in line for the greet­ing of the leader or senior offi­cer, when they hear the salute “Glo­ry to Ukraine!” they reply “Glo­ry to Heroes”. The same actions take place dur­ing the part­ing.
    ...

    So this is prob­a­bly a good time to recall that one of the most dis­turb­ing trends in Ukraine in recent years is the dep­u­ti­za­tion by the police of neo-Nazi orga­ni­za­tions like C14.

    It’s also worth recall­ing that the for­mer deputy com­man­der of the neo-Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion, Vadim Troy­an, was made the head of the Kyiv Region­al Police Force in 2014 and lat­er became the First Deputy Head of the Nation­al Police in March of 2016. In Novem­ber of 2016, Troy­an was made the act­ing police chief by Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Arsen Avokov when the head of the Nation­al Police, Kha­tia Dekanoidze, resigned. Troy­an went on to be appoint­ed the Deputy Min­is­ter of Inter­nal Affairs in 2017 (the Inte­ri­or Min­istry over­sees the Nation­al Police) and was replaced as direc­tor of the police in Feb­ru­ary 2017. So while it’s high­ly dis­turb­ing to learn that Ukraine’s police force is going to be forced to use a fas­cist salute, it’s not like this is a new trend for Ukraine’s police. It’s just the lat­est dis­turb­ing event in an increas­ing­ly dis­turb­ing ongo­ing trend.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | October 5, 2018, 9:35 am

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