Zelensky Recalls Ambassador Who Defended Nazi collaborator

Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist leader

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, announced Saturday that he recalled his ambassador to Germany who denied the claim that Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist leader and Nazi collaborator, was a killer.

The statement was brief and did not explain why Andriy Melnyk was being recalled. Politico pointed to unconfirmed reports out of Germany that he would take a post in Ukraine’s foreign ministry. He has served as the ambassador to Berlin for about eight years.

PUTIN: WE HAVEN’T BEGUN TO FIGHT

Melnyk faced backlash last week after defending Bandera, who served as the head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

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Notes from Poland reported that Melnyk made the remarks while interviewed by two German journalists.

The group was accused of massacres and ethnic cleansing of Poles and Jews during WWII. Bandera, who was born in 1909, died after being poisoned by the Soviet Union’s KGB in 1959 in Munich.

In 2014, Russia’s envoy to the U.N. addressed the Security Council and said, “It is deeply disturbing that the followers of Bandera are openly marching these days in Ukraine, displaying his portraits and fascist insignia, and are wielding considerable political power in Kyiv.”

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Melnyk was asked how such a person can be embraced as a hero in Ukraine and he denied the claim that Bandera was a killer. One of the journalists cited a propaganda leaflet signed by Bandera that called for Russians, Poles, Hungarian, and Jews to be “wiped out” and Melnyk stuck by his earlier comment.

He was swiftly criticized by Poland and Israel, which see the debate as black and white.

The Israeli embassy told the paper that Malnyk’s comments were a “distortion of the historical facts,” and the Polish deputy foreign minister posted online: “Such an opinion and such words are absolutely unacceptable.”

Bandera is controversial, even in Ukraine. Viktor Yushchenko, who was Ukraine president in 2005, awarded Bandera, who is viewed as a father figure by some Ukrainians the title “Hero of Ukraine.” It was later revoked by Viktor Yanukovych, whose government, as we have greatly detailed in the Trends Journal, was overthrown with the backing of the United States.

Forget About It

The western media no longer reports on the U.S.-backed overthrow of Yanukovych in 2014. Also completely absent in the Western media reports is the role Washington and Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs at the time, played in the overthrow of its government in 2014. (Nuland still has an important role in D.C.)

TRENDPOST: Don’t expect to see much of this story in the Western media because anything less than presenting Ukrainian forces as heroic freedom fighters does not fit the corporate media narrative and will not be discussed. 

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist, shared a part of the interview with Melnyk, and posted, “When you watch Ukrainian officials lovingly interviewed by CNN or BBC, they often have photos of national hero Stepan Bandera on their wall. He's a Nazi collaborator who mass-murdered Jews and Poles.”

Also absent in the coverage, according to an April 2022 poll, 74 percent of Ukrainians are now viewing him favorably according to the Rating group. Highly loved, in celebration of his birthday, each year his supporters march through the streets of the capital, Kyiv, in a torchlight procession.

NOTE TO READERS: Occupy Peace is launching a Peace and Freedom Rally in Kingston, N.Y., on Saturday, July 23rd at 2 p.m. Our mission is to reverse the negative trends of ongoing wars, hatred and destruction... and bring Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All. A main purpose of this Rally is for We The People to demand that Washington and NATO stop sending billions of dollars of weaponry that keeps bloodying the killing fields of Ukraine, and instead negotiate a peace treaty.