Follow-up, 2023-09-14: Apparently the CIA link was a translation of a Russian-language magazine that was published later—but that still doesn’t excuse Bandera or his collaboration with the Nazis. Dump Bandera.
Here are some better links about Bandera and his work with the Nazis, primarily from Jewish organisations—that is, Bandera’s primary victims:
- Nazi collaborator monuments in Ukraine, Lev Golinkin for The Forward
- The Cult of Stepan Bandera, blog post by Sheldon Kirshner for The Times of Israel
- World Jewish Congress news release condemning the Kiev municipal government for naming a street after Stepan Bandera
- A Foreign Policy piece by Josh Cohen warning Ukrainian leaders to avoid tying themselves to Nazi collaborators like Bandera
- Binoy Kampmark for the Eurasia Review about Bandera’s collaboration with the Third Reich
- A few pieces from Haaretz, a typically pro-Ukraine Israeli newspaper, reporting about Bandera’s collaboration with the Nazis
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I wish Ukrainian nationalists—as well as some supporters of the Ukrainian cause, including Russian liberals—would stop holding up Stepan Bandera as a morally blameless symbol of resistance against Russian and Soviet domination. The man was a spy for the Nazis, according to a CIA report that was released in 2006. This isn’t fake news or Russian propaganda. It’s right there on cia.gov!
The Russians’ claims that all Ukrainians are “Banderites” who want to bring back the Third Reich are scurrilous lies designed to discredit Ukraine. But it would also be dishonest to claim that Bandera was anything but a Nazi collaborator.
Fuck Bandera. There are better people to look up to.
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