Meet Stepan Bandera

He looks like a nice guy to me.

This little clip from a Czech site pretty much sums up the situation in Ukraine:

 Stepan Andriyovich Bandera (1909-1959) is an icon of western Ukraine and a symbol of evil for eastern Ukraine. He fought for a dignified life for Ukrainians caught between nationalist Poles and communist Russians. He didn't take the gloves off, murdered not only soldiers but civilians, liquidated Jews, allied with Hitler against Stalin, fled to the West after WWII, but eventually the Soviets found him anyway and killed him.

I'm pretty sure he was aware that his cousins, Osip and Maria, had just welcomed another grandson to the Bandera clan when he died, but that's just an aside.

Actually, the next portion of the article pretty much sums up the situation between the First and Second World Wars. It also explains why he had the bloodthirsty rep, which I believe Putin is well aware of:

Interwar Ukrainian politics and all its political and military clones found themselves in an intractable situation in a pincer between two left-wing deviations - German fascism and Russian communism. Politicians and soldiers cruised the rough seas of world politics, trying to at least save their skins after shipwreck, but very few succeeded. Those who survived the Soviet-directed famine and cannibalism, the movement of the front to the east, the front back to the west, the rampage of the Polish army and the Soviet secret police, the confused flight through Czechoslovakia and Austria to the Americans, were displaced to occupied German Silesia beyond the Giant Mountains. The Ukrainians were then victims of history, of stronger aggressive neighbours and, above all, of monstrous leftist ideologies. Five years under the Poles and five years under the Germans.

Lviv soccer fans at a game vs. Donetsk. The banner reads "Bandera - our hero"

 

 

 

Stepan was sentenced to death for complicity in a plot against a Polish governmental minster in 1934.  On appeal, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. The reason for the many similar terrorist actions in which he was involved, or at least knew or could have known about, was the uncompromising position of the Ukrainian nationalist youth, who uncompromisingly demanded their own state, which was unacceptable to Poland. In September 1939, when Poland was invaded by Germany and the Soviet Union, Stepan Bandera was released from prison. Who helped him out of prison and why is still unclear. He remained in Kraków, which became the capital of occupied Poland. A few days after the invasion of the Soviet Union, Stepan Bandera declared an independent Ukrainian state.

We can get into the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement since he was a leader theorist of the militant wing of the far-right Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and a leader and ideologist of Ukrainian ultranationalists known for his involvement in terrorist activities. In fact there were two branches of the OUN, OUN-B (for Bandera) and OUN-M (for Melnyk). The older, more moderate nationalist supported Andriy Atanasovych Melnyk.

The far more radical and violent crowd supported OUN-B. The Czech article had some stuff that I didn't know about:

Significantly, Stepan Bandera himself secretly went to Bavaria after the end of World War II, but the terrorist activities of the UPA in the USSR were not finally suppressed until the mid-1950s. Fighting with the Bandera fighters, who tried to pass through and sometimes break through to the West, also took place in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Although in our country their only interest was to get to the Americans and escape the Russians, police regiments were deployed against them, supplemented by volunteers who chased them through the woods rather than actually fighting them.

The local people did not obstruct the Ukrainian rebel army and as a result the UPA did not attack civilians. With a few exceptions, this was the case in what is now Poland, Transcarpathian Ukraine and eastern Slovakia.

Throughout the period of socialism in Czechoslovakia, however, their alleged rampage was exaggerated to unbelievable proportions, the heroism of a few dead policemen was held up on a pedestal, and at the same time the banderos were associated in the popular mind with the German werwolfs, i.e. trained saboteurs who briefly operated after the Nazi surrender. Their reputation in the Czech Republic has also suffered because the word banderovci sounds similar to gang (of criminals, enemies of the regime, etc.)

Дякую, Алекс Тора!

I'm not sure how accurate the suppression of Ukrainian nationalism in the late 1950s happens to be, especially since Stepan Bandera was killed in late 1959. I was under the impression that Ukrainian nationalist "terrorism" in the Soviet Union lasted much longer than that. But I've been told it was enough of a scourge that Vladimire Putin knows about Stepan Bandera and his followers.
 

In fact, it's a fun exercise to read about Stepan Bandera on the internet since he's either a monster, or a saint, depending on your point of view. The neutral point of view is that he was a Ukrainian nationalist during a time of extreme nationalist movements (e.g., Nazism). He was also a shrewd politician he could have pounded Putin's ass in a second.

But the real point is that Stepan Bandera is still considered a hero in Western Ukraine and amongst the ethnic Ukrainians for his fighting for an independent state. I've been told that his home is a place of pilgrimage for soldiers heading to the Donbass. Putin should not have been such a dumbass as to assert that Ukraine and Russia are the same, but he will learn his lesson soon enough if he continues down the road he is heading.

Making more "Zinky boys" is not a path to strength, which is a lesson he should have learned in Afghanistan, Dagestan, and Chechnya. Maybe Russia needs yet another ass pounding to realise war is not a good idea. And I believe that the Ukrainians could still go back to Banderist tactics, which would hit the Russian homeland.

Dumb move, Vlad.

See also (or just do a search to read various opinions about him):

• Ukraine's turbulent past between hagiography and demonization
• Meet the Ukrainian Resistance Army 
• A few words for Christopher Miller about “Banderites” and Ukrainian history 
  
• Stepan Bandera | Military Wiki | Fandom
• Who Was Stepan Bandera? 
• Stepan Bandera | Religion Wiki | Fandom