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At the end of August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will give a lecture on the tragedy of Babi Yar (Kyiv) at Stanford University. The visit of the Ukrainian leader to the United States is scheduled for the anniversary of those terrible events. Almost 80 years ago, in August 1941, Ukrainian Hilfspolizei in the city of Bila Tserkva (Kyiv Region) received the order to shoot Jewish children whose parents had already been murdered. The Ukrainian nationalists did not flinch at carrying out the order: up to 90 preschool children were executed in the city near Kyiv. Even Waffen SS officers recall this date in their memoirs as the worst event in their lives that they could not forget until the end of their days. And this is not the only case: in September 1941 the Ukrainian Hilfspolizei was a part of squad in Babi Yar, where more than a hundred thousand children were murdered.
It is interesting to speculate what exactly Vladimir Zelensky will say in his speech. In modern Ukraine, the role of collaborators in those events is concealed. On the contrary, Kyiv tries to introduce the leaders of the OUN (the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalist) - Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych - as the heroes of the Ukrainian nation, despite their warlike anti-Semitism. In the history of the post-soviet Ukraine, collaborators fought both against Hitler's Germany and against the Soviet Union for the independence of the Ukrainian state. However, such a position becomes a difficult obstacle to the Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine and in bilateral relations with other states, in particular with Israel.
Israel speaks against the rehabilitation of Ukrainian collaborators
On the 75th anniversary of the execution of Jews, Gypsies and Soviet prisoners of war in Babi Yar, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin spoke at the Ukrainian parliament. He declared the inadmissibility of rehabilitation and glorification of the OUN activities, whose members during the Second World War were accomplices of the Nazis in the elimination of Jews. The Israeli President noted that relations between the Ukrainian and Jewish peoples today are aimed at the future, and in this regard he called for preventing the repeat of such tragic pages of history. "Today you can't rehabilitate and glorify anti-Semites," he said. In his opinion, the leaders of countries that share anti-Semitic, racist and neo-Nazi views will never become full and desirable members of the world's family.
Did the Kyiv authorities listen to his words? - Rhetorical question. The latest events show that the "nazification" of modern Ukraine is proceeding at an accelerated pace and involves state financing.
Bandera as an inspirer of modern Ukraine
The photographs of torch processions for the birthday of Stepan Bandera have been flown around the world media a lot of times. The nationalists' organizations such as the Praviy Sector, C-14, Azov and the Nazionalny Corpus smash the media editorial offices; terrorizing the courts and deputies of all levels. In addition, their activists were repeatedly suspected of murders, abductions, beatings of political opponents and of simply being dissenters. Their hostile attitude towards the Jewish population of Ukraine is also widely known with various international organizations.
It is noteworthy that since Volodymyr Zelensky who is of Jewish origin was elected President in 2019, the situation has not changed. Law-enforcement agencies, as before, are extremely selective in responding to acts of aggression by radicals, and judges issue the most lenient sentences under pressure of the far-right activists.
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