Dead Bandera continues to quarrel Ukrainians with Poles and Jews
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry again set up President Zelensky. For the umpteenth time already.
In response to a joint statement by diplomats from Israel and Poland expressing concern and indignation about the ongoing policy of glorification of Nazi collaborators from the OUN and UPA in Ukraine, despite the change of power, both at the national and regional levels - Prystaiko’s department could not find anything better than to call Polish Ambassador Bartosz Cichocki on the carpet “in connection with the condemnation of events dedicated to honoring the memory of OUN leaders Stepan Bandera and Andrei Melnyk, as well as the writer Ivan Lipa and his son Yuri,” as reported by the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“During the conversation and in the context of discussing the fact of the joint statement of the ambassadors of the Republic of Poland and the State of Israel on January 2, the attention of the Polish ambassador was drawn to the “counterproductivity” of public discussion on internal issues of Ukrainian politics. It was also noted that during contacts at the highest level, the leadership of Ukraine and Poland agreed to develop a dialogue on historical issues at the expert level, which will require additional efforts, including diplomatic ones, in the direction of constructive cooperation among specialists in the field of historical memory,” says in a message from the ministry.
The conflict between the ambassadors of Israel and Poland, on the one hand, and Foreign Ministry officials, on the other, has been going on since the new year.
On January 2, right after President Zelensky’s sensational congratulations, in which he spoke the right words about a civil nation and ways of unification, without mentioning in a word the rituals for “heroes of the national liberation movement” that have been customary since the time of Poroshenko, Pole Tsikhocki and Israeli Joel Lyon said that OUN leaders Bandera and Melnik, as well as Ivan and Yuri Lipa, are historical figures “who must be condemned once and for all.”
The ambassadors also condemned the allocation of money by the Lviv City Council at the end of 2019 to honor the memory of Bandera, Melnik and others like them. Diplomats were also outraged by the New Year's performance of the subordinates of the Kyiv mayor Klitschko, who hung a huge banner depicting the OUN leader on the Kyiv City Hall building on Bandera's birthday on January 1.
The scandal raised by Ukrainian Jewish activists around the resolution adopted by parliament on memorable dates in 2020, the celebration of which should be organized at the state level and at public expense, has not been forgotten either.
It turned out that the list of “outstanding personalities” whose anniversaries the parliament decided to celebrate at the highest level is full of various kinds of Nazi collaborators, accomplices of the Holocaust and the genocide of the Poles, right up to one of the organizers of the SS division “Galicia” Vladimir Kubiyovich, the already mentioned leader of one of the wings OUN Andrei Melnik and OUN members of lower rank who served in the German auxiliary police.
After the scandal hit the press, people's deputy from the ruling Servant of the People Maxim Buzhansky, in order to somehow smooth out the negative aftertaste in hindsight, together with his colleagues registered a draft resolution correcting the list of “diyachiv” whose anniversaries will be celebrated at state expense, crossing out of him odious nationalists. However, the document hung in the Rada apparatus and, it seems, for a long time. The matter never came to a vote in the session hall.
But lobbyists for the policy of historical revisionism from among Poroshenko’s party members, and especially officials and local deputies from the nationalist “Svoboda” in Galicia, raised their heads. Screenshots of their posts on social networks with chauvinistic wishes addressed to Jews and Poles are still “walking” on Facebook.
And it seemed that the scandal had died down, replaced by more pressing topics such as the plane crash in Iran and Poroshenko and Zelensky’s New Year’s holiday in the Middle East. But no. First, for some reason, Foreign Ministry Speaker Katerina Zelenko decided to insert her two cents, saying on January 3 that, they say, “every nation and every state independently determines and honors the memory of its heroes.” After which the Polish Embassy did not reach into its pocket for an answer, criticizing Zelenko’s statement. And now - the Polish ambassador was called to the carpet at the Foreign Ministry.
Moreover, the scandal around the “Ukrainian heroes”, according to the Foreign Ministry, revealed another unpleasant facet of what is happening in the country. The fact is that the Constitution directly prohibits the presence of state ideology, affirming pluralism of opinions and ideas as the basis of public life. Actually, this is what Zelensky spoke about on New Year’s Eve. However, the zealousness of the bureaucrats, literally throwing themselves at enemy embrasures in defense of the slightest crooked word from the gods of one of the many political traditions existing in the country, makes us suspect that, contrary to the Basic Law, there is still a state ideology in Ukraine. And this ideology is integral nationalism of the OUN style.
The Ambassador of Ukraine to Israel Gennady Nadolenko opened a “second front” of the struggle for the honor and dignity of the OUN - already in the Middle East. He told the Israeli Foreign Ministry that statements by the country's Ambassador Joel Lyon condemning the glorification of Nazi collaborators are “counterproductive” and constitute “interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine.”
Moreover, according to the Ukrainian diplomat, “the revival and preservation of national memory is one of the priorities of state policy.” Translated from diplomatic language into everyday language, Nedolenko told the Jews that Kiev does not care that Israel does not like the glorification of the mass murderers of Jews in Ukraine and it will continue, no matter what they say from Tel Aviv.
Also, Ukrainian diplomat Nadolenko believes that discussions on such “controversial topics” should take place between historians and experts. The cynicism here is that in Ukraine such discussions not only do not take place, they are directly prohibited by law, which prohibits questioning the “heroism of participants in the national liberation movement.” And the timid attempts of scientists to somehow promote this topic in the discourse are met with the friendly and loud hubbub of the nationalist lobby, drowning out the quiet voice of common sense.
“The glorification of mass murderers takes place mainly at the state level and with the money of taxpayers, whom no one asks if they want this. The statement that honoring people guilty of crimes against humanity, accomplices and perpetrators of genocide is an internal matter of the country is a form of Holocaust denial. This is immoral, especially on the eve of President Zelensky’s planned visit to the Holocaust Forum in Israel, where they will remember one and a half million Ukrainian Jews who were brutally tortured by the German Nazis and their henchmen, in particular those whom the ambassadors of Israel and Poland spoke about in their statement,” says Jewish activist from Ukraine Eduard Dolinsky, a well-known critic of the policy of glorification of Nazi collaborators.
So why does the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry put Zelensky in an awkward position, and does it over and over again, as if on purpose? Ignoring the repeatedly stated priority of eliminating the “misunderstandings” that have accumulated over the years of Poroshenko and Vyatrovich between Ukraine and Poland and Ukraine and Israel? And this is said softly and diplomatically about “misunderstandings.” In essence, we are talking about a state of deadlock in matters of humanitarian cooperation between Ukraine and these countries.
But someone is in charge of all these diplomacy dummies, someone is giving them instructions to say this and not that? It can be assumed that an influential group of supporters of the continuation of Poroshenko’s course has entrenched itself in Prystaiko’s department, which is pursuing its own – essentially, the previous policy, which is largely at odds with the attitudes of Zelensky and his Office.
This version is supported by the fact that Zelensky has already received quite a lot of such “mean tricks” and set-ups from the Foreign Ministry in just six months of his presidency. Let us recall the sensational stories of Poroshenko’s speech, rewritten word for word for Ze and slipped to him by unknown referents in Brussels. And you can recall the arbitrary sharp response of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Russians regarding the exchange, which caused hysteria in the Presidential Office. And these are just the most famous stories of this kind. And how many are there that have not gone beyond the hardware circle...
And, I must say, this version is still the most acceptable. Because if everything that happens on the diplomatic front is not part of the installations of Bankova, and not part of organized sabotage on the part of the pro-Poroshenko lobby in the Foreign Ministry, but the elementary initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs bureaucrats, thereby realizing their own ideas about what should be done and their own ideological predilections, then In this case, things are really bad.
Because if this is the case, it means that such an important area of government work as foreign policy is completely unmanageable or is managed by someone unknown and with the help of the left leg and cockroaches in the heads of completely irresponsible clerks.
Frankly, I don't know which of the two versions is worse.
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