Documents Prove Bandera Guilty Of Murdering Jews, Poles In Ukraine During WWII - Experts

Available historical documents demonstrate the personal responsibility of infamous Ukrainian nationalist leader and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera for the killings of Jews and Poles in western Ukraine during World War II, experts told Sputnik on Friday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2020) Available historical documents demonstrate the personal responsibility of infamous Ukrainian nationalist leader and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera for the killings of Jews and Poles in western Ukraine during World War II, experts told Sputnik on Friday.

Earlier in the day, the US Central Intelligence Agency published WW II-related documents, including those pertaining to Bandera. One of them a 1951 article from a socialist publication described Bandera as "the Ukrainian fascist and Hitler's professional spy." According to the article, during its five weeks of existence, Bandera's Ukrainian nationalist government murdered over 5,000 Ukrainians, 15,000 Jews and a few thousand Poles.

Ilya Altman, a co-chairman of the Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center, thinks that a lot more Jews were killed during this period. Meanwhile, it was unclear to what type of Ukrainians the article referred.

"It could have been talking about Soviet activists, communists perhaps, but we do not know any credible statistic on the matter, even from other sources," he said.

Alexander Dyukov, the director of the Historical Memory Foundation, says that there are plenty of documents proving the criminal nature of Bandera and his supporters.

"Without a doubt, Bandera was a conduit of the German Nazi policy. Without a doubt, he is irresponsible for that wave of antisemitic and anti-polish violence, that covered western Ukraine in the summer of 1941," Dyukov said.

The Ukrainian national government, established in June 1941, was led by Bandera's wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and was forcefully disbanded by Nazi Germany a few weeks later. Despite the atrocities committed by the forces led by Bandera, he is currently glorified by nationalists in Ukraine. Some officials even consider plans to build a monument close to the Russian border to commemorate Bandera.