A brief on some points of Ukrainian History: Ukrainian Patriotic Army, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, etc.

By this point, people may have seen material from Russian Bots, or at least Soviet Era material about Stepan Bandera, Ukrainian Patriotic Army, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, and the Kievan Rus. So, let's get started.

The Kievan Rus: Putin is correct in that Kyiv, or Kiev, is the birthplace of the Rus. But he needs to realise that would mean Moscow takes second place to Kyiv if he wants to be that way. He has to realise that he's been beaten by a dude who can play the piano with his penis (Volodymyr Zelensky). That should be really painful for Putain, who likes to boast about his black belt in Judo.  Hey, that shit only works in the dojo anyway.

I should add that Volodymyr Zelensky happens to be Jewish: especially since one of the reasons Russian bots give to not support Ukraine is that there are Nazis and Anti-Semites. But as the tweet shows, there are Jews in the modern Ukrainian resistance. There also were Jewish members in the OUN of Stepan Bandera's day.

Anyway...

I mention the Holodomor a lot: It means "death by hunger".  Stalin and his followers were determined to teach the Ukrainian people “a lesson they would not forget.”  Tens of thousands of Ukraine’s intellectual, spiritual, and cultural leaders were arrested, some subjected to show trials and executed, most sent to prison labor camps, often resulting in death. In June of 1933, at the height of the Holodomor, 28,000 men, women and children in Ukraine were dying of starvation each day.  The land that was known worldwide as the breadbasket of Europe was being ravaged by a man-made famine of unprecedented scale.

Next we get to the Ukrainian resistance during the pre-WWII period and beyond. The unfortunate thing is that there is the reputation for being genocidal, which is one of the reasons for Putain's invasion. The Ukrainian Army has various regiments which strongly idolise Stepan Bandera. I mentioned that Stepan Bandera is the devil incarnate for some people due to his "genocidal" urges. 

But people need to understand that Bandera was an ardent nationalist during a period of ardent nationalism. The rise of nationalism in Europe initiated with the Spring of Nations in 1848. Nationalism calls on people to identify with the interests of their national group and to support the creation of a state to support those interests. Countries like Poland and Ukraine wanted their independence. The 14-18 war started with the assassination of Prince Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian Nationalist. Extreme and violent nationalism was pretty much epidemic as the rise of the National Socialist German Workers Party demonstrated. 

After the war people who collaborated with the enemy were subjected to trials with collaborators being killed. France had its Épuration légale:

The three Épuration periods were: épuration sauvage, épuration légale, and a third phase in which suspected and guilty collaborators were treated with lenience. The first phase, épuration sauvage, produced the most brutal retribution of the three periods. The first phase took place during and immediately after the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944. The wrath of the partisan French citizens was directed at suspected and well-known collaborators. Many people waited inside their apartments expecting to hear the dreaded knock—similar to the Gestapo and French police tactics during the Occupation. After the arrest, punishments included beatings, interrogation with torture, as well as summary executions (with or without the benefit of a “kangaroo” court). This period of time was essentially one of lawlessness and mob rule. Women suspected of having a German lover were rounded up and most had their heads shaved while some had swastikas carved into their foreheads. A second but shorter phase occurred in May and June of 1945 when the surviving deportees returned home. Newsreels of the concentration camps and the gruesome scenes contributed to another round of épuration sauvage. It was reminiscent of the week-long “September Massacre” (1792) during the French Revolution when the mobs emptied the prisons and killed many of the prisoners.

The wrath of people in occupied nations after WWII is pretty well known and went on for a while. I would also add that there were Nazi collaborators and sympathisers pretty much all over world: even in the US. As one Belgian friend said after we went to an exhibition on Belgian Resistance during WWII: "that's amusing since most Belgians were pro-Nazi..." So, Nazi sympathisers were also pretty common, but how many people get guilt tripped for driving a VW or Ford? Or remember that the US Nazi party had a rally in NYC's Madison Square Garden?

Stepan Bandera was indeed a guest of the Germans: he spent most of the war in Sachsenhausen Kz (or concentration camp). Peter Bandera provided the picture from the Auschwitz Memorial since three members of Stepan Bandera's family were in Concentration Camps. This is from the Ukrainian Crisis Media Centre:

The myth presenting the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) and the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) as main actors in these acts of violence, was actively exploited by the Soviet and later Russian propaganda to justify the fight that the USSR’s repressive agencies were waging against these organizations. As the myth goes, during World War II the supporters of the nationalist movement were massively killing Jews, Poles, and Russian speakers. It thus gave grounds to the Soviet intelligence and members of the security service to fight against them till the late 1950s under the pretext to not let them “massively kill”. Not only OUN members but also members of the group that had formally nothing to do with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists were presented as “Ukrainian nationalists” by the Soviet and Russian propaganda

It is not rare to see the statements in today’s Russian media suggesting “mass killings of Jews by followers of Bandera” and that “Bandera was responsible for killings of Jews in western Ukraine”. They also claim that “Nachtigall” and “Roland” (German battalions formed of Ukrainian soldiers, which did not take part in combat actions) were among the main organizers of Holocaust in Ukraine. By mixing up these notions attempts are made to create a logical sequence in the heads of the viewers and readers suggesting that Ukrainians standing for the independent state are nationalists, while Ukrainian nationalists were killing Jews during World War II, which makes all standing for the independent Ukrainian state open or secret anti-Semites and criminals.

Mass and systematic killings of Jews during World War II in Ukraine were conducted not by Ukrainian nationalists but by Nazi troops and militarized units. These were mainly staff of security service, SS and police as well as assistant personnel.

According to an UNIAN correspondent, SBU archive representative, candidate of historical sciences Oleksander Ishchuk showed declassified documents, which provide an objective basis to state that OUN was not connected with violent actions against the civil population of Lviv in July 1941. According to Mr. Ishchuk, the declassified documents of SBU indicate that on July 4-7 of 1941, representatives of Gestapo, who arrived in Lviv, turned to Ukrainian circles with demand to carry out a three-day massacre of Jews. “The OUN leadership, having got to know about that, informed its members that it was a German provocation in order to compromise Ukrainians with massacres”, the document reads. Mr. Ishchuk highlighted that “The SBU documents confirm that OUN members were trying to avoid taking part in actions against the Jewish population in Lviv, there were no official instructions on this issue”

Cases are known when Bandera supporters in Central and Eastern Ukraine were giving false passports to the Jews or were even hiding them from the Germans. Among those who saved the Jews during World War II there were OUN members including the wife of Roman Shukhevych, UPA chief commander, Natalia as well as the priest Omelyan Kovch (OUN member since 1930s). 

Samuel Drix in Witness to Annihilation: Surviving the Holocaust a Memoir (ISBN 978-0028810874) said this about Stepan's cousin, Osip: "Engineer Bandera was not anti-Semitic as far as I could tell. He seemed to me a very decent person, and he had respect for doctors." I would add that technically Stepan was Polish since he was born in the Lviv (Lwow) Oblast. Not to mention he was sitting in Sachsenhausen as a guest of the Nazis for a good portion of the war. 

Note that the Swastika is underfoot

Thus, despite the military cooperation with Germany OUN(b) was pursuing their own political line that the Nazi were not aware of. A good example of such behavior was Declaration of Ukrainian State Act of June 30, 1941 in Lviv. It came as a surprise for Hitler’s supporters as independent Ukraine was never part of the Third Reich’s plans. On July 5, 1941 the Nazis arrested Bandera. And then on July 9,  the head of the newly established government, Yaroslav Stetsko.

The OUN intended to take advantage of the retreat of Soviet forces from Ukraine with the Declaration of State Act. Some members thought that they had found a new powerful ally in Nazi Germany to aid them in their struggle against the Soviet Union. Days after the Nazi invasion of Lviv, however, the leadership of the newly formed government was arrested and sent to concentration camps in Germany. Within two years of the declaration, the Nazis had imprisoned or killed 80% of OUN-B leadership.

It may not be correct to try and justify killing: On the other hand, this was a very violent period where collaborators often met violent ends, as did people in the resistance. There were Jewish Revenge Squads that sought out Nazis and killed them without a trial.

Anyway, the Ukrainians have been working for an independent nation for a while now, but the Russians want to make sure they remain puppets the same way that Belarus is. The reality is that Ukraine is an independent nation, which is guaranteed by the 1994 Budapest Agreement. And that is the goal of Ukrainian nationalists: an independent Ukraine.

See also:

• The Holdomor Resource Library
• The hacked swastika info-op that reinforced antisemitic stereotypes about Ukraine
  
• Declaration of State Act 30 Jun 1940 
•  SBU declassifies documents proving OUN-UPA not connected with anti-Jewish actions
• Smear and Loathing: A Close Look at Accusations of Ukrainian Anti-Semitism 
• History of OUN-UPA: the Bandera controversy that eclipsed 200,000 people who fought for the independence of Ukraine
•  Historian Andrey Zubov: Banderites are an example of the great lie of the Soviet system
•  A few words for Christopher Miller about “Banderites” and Ukrainian history
  
• 10 Myths about the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) 
• 10 myths about the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Myth #3: Bandera and Ukrainian nationalists were agents of the Nazi special services
  
• 10 myths about the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Myth #5: Ukrainian nationalists were massively killing Jews during World War II, especially in Lviv and in Babyn Yar
• The Ukrainian Insurgent Army — Inside One of WW2’s Strangest Resistance Movements
  
• CIA‘s Use of Nazi Strategy on Ukrainian Right-Wing Nationalists Unabated since Cold War  
• Yizkor.org Sepher Stryj- Chapters 2 & 3 
• Jewish Revenge Squads 
•  Ukraine got a signed commitment in 1994 to ensure its security – but can the US and allies stop Putin’s aggression now?
• American Nazism and Madison Square Garden