CSTO PA Standing Commission Chairman Markevich: Glorification of Nazism Is a Crime

Last Friday, 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka, whom Anthony Rota, Speaker of the House of Commons, introduced as “a Ukrainian-Canadian veteran of the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians,” was invited to a session of the Canadian Parliament on the occasion of the Ukrainian President’s visit.

Parliamentarians, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, greeted the guest several times with a standing ovation. However, it turned out that Hunka fought “against the Russians” as a member of the 14th Grenadier Volunteer Division of the SS Galicia, which not only opposed the Red Army but also committed atrocities against Jews, Poles, Belarusians and Slovaks. After such an act of Nazi honouring, a scandal broke out.

Vyacheslav Volodin, Chairman of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly, condemned what happened in the Canadian Parliament.

“By their participation in honouring an SS member in the Canadian Parliament, they have once again shown disrespect, having desecrated the memory of millions who died at the hands of the Nazis and were tortured in Nazi camps during the Second World War. They have shown contempt for the genocide of the Jewish, Polish and Russian peoples,” Vyacheslav Volodin said in his Telegram channel.

On September 26, the State Duma unanimously adopted a statement titled In Connection with the Encouragement of Ukronazism and Neo-Fascism by the Canadian Authorities, in which it strongly condemned the honouring of the veteran of the Waffen-SS division Galicia Jaroslav Hunka in the Canadian Parliament.

Aleksandr Markevich, Chairman of the CSTO PA Standing Commission on Socioeconomic and Legal Issues and deputy Chairman of the Standing Commission on National Security of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus, also condemned the actions of his Canadian colleagues.

“The main danger of any actions to rehabilitate Nazism is that it is threatening to change the way citizens of the CSTO Member States view history. Glorification of Nazism is unacceptable. What happened in the Parliament of Canada has outraged not only the CSTO countries, but also the whole world, which condemned Nazism as a phenomenon,” stressed Aleksandr Markevich.

In autumn 2023, the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly is expected to adopt the Recommendations on the Criminalization of the Actions Related to Attempts to Rehabilitate Nazism and Distort Historical Truth, Humiliate the Honour and Dignity of Military Veterans, Equate the USSR’s Role to Germany’s in the Second World War and Belittle the Humanitarian Mission of the USSR in the Liberation of Europe, which are being drafted in accordance with the 2021–2025 Action Plan of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization on the Approximation and Harmonization of National Legislation of the CSTO Member States.