The Canadian Parliament felicitated a Nazi war criminal on Friday, September 22nd. The entire event was telecasted where the parliamentarians gave an ovation to the 98-year-old Nazi. The Nazi war criminal’s felicitation by the Canadian Parliament has created a global ruckus, exposing the West’s tryst with Nazism, an allegation levelled against it by Russia for a long time, and became an ignominious occasion for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government.
The Nazi war criminal, identified as Yaroslav Hunka by the press, had fought against the Soviet Union as a part of a Nazi division named First Ukrainian Division. In the postwar period, Hunka immigrated to Canada to escape the military tribunal. The First Ukrainian Division is another name for the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the Schutzstaffel (SS), the military wing of the Nazi Party; the unit was also called SS Galichina.
Incidentally, the Nazi war criminal’s felicitation by the Canadian Parliament took place in the presence of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy, who has been accused of being a Nazi supporter by the Kremlin, a charge he denies vehemently. Zelenskyy addressed the Canadian lawmakers to thank them for their support against Russia, especially Canadian military aid, saying Canada has always been on the bright side of history.
The House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota — who had compared Zelenskyy to Winston Churchill — recognised Hunka, who was in the pavilion, as one who fought for “Ukrainian independence against the Russians” and claimed that he continues to support the Ukrainian troops even at his age of 98. Zelenskyy was seen on the telecast raising his fist in honour of Hunka.
However, while initiating the Nazi war criminal’s felicitation by the Canadian Parliament, Rota didn’t mention that the war for “Ukrainian independence” was one waged by Nazi Germany to destroy the Soviet Union. He also didn’t mention the atrocities committed by the Nazis, especially the SS Galichina against the Jews and Poles, apart from the Ukrainian people.
Formed in 1943, SS Galichina was composed of recruits from the Galicia region in western Ukraine. The unit was armed and trained by the Nazis and commanded by German officers. In 1944, the division was visited by Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, who spoke of the soldiers’ willingness to slaughter Poles.
Three months earlier, SS Galichina subunits perpetrated what is known as the Huta Pieniacka massacre, setting ablaze 500-1000 Polish villagers alive.
During the Nuremberg Trials, the International Military Tribunal declared the SS to be a criminal organisation responsible for mass atrocities including the persecution and extermination of the Jews, brutalities and atrocities in concentration camps, excesses in the administration of occupied territories, the administration of the slave labour program, and the mistreatment and murder of prisoners.
After the war, thousands of SS Galichina veterans were allowed to resettle in the West, around 2,000 of them in Canada. By then, the unit was universally known as the First Ukrainian Division. Several members of the bloc continued to carry out espionage activities in the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
Canada and the entire West claim to be the defenders of “human rights”. With its holier-than-thou approach, when Trudeau’s government allows the Nazi war criminal’s felicitation by the Canadian Parliament, it exhibits the umbilical cord that ties white men’s liberalism with Nazism. The same government had earlier accused the truckers, who were agitating against the government, of being Nazis.
Experts believe that due to its vested interests, the Canadian foreign ministry and Trudeau’s government remain mute over the growth of neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine against which Russia is running its special military operations. Trudeau had welcomed Zelenskyy and announced the continuation of military aid to Ukraine against Russia. The Canadian foreign and internal security policies are dictated by the US, it’s alleged.
After facing backlash over the issue, Trudeau made a statement where he called the incident of the Nazi war criminal’s felicitation by the Canadian Parliament “deeply embarrassing” and indirectly blamed Rota for the issue. However, while concluding his statement Trudeau blamed Russia also. “It will be important that all of us push back against Russian propaganda, Russian disinformation and continue our steadfast and unequivocal support for Ukraine”, Trudeau said, without mentioning the exact role of Russian “disinformation” in the entire episode.
Russia accuses Zelenskyy’s regime of continuously harbouring and nurturing the neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Russia also alleges that the Ukrainian regime has been glorifying Stefan Bandera, a notorious Nazi war criminal, as a “freedom fighter” by portraying the Soviet era as one of colonial rule. In the process of de-Sovietisation, the Ukrainian regime and its neo-Nazis vandalised the monuments honouring Red Army soldiers who fought against the Nazis and attacked the ethnic Russians in the eastern parts of the country.
Zelenskyy and his government have been repeatedly found involved in the glorification and promotion of neo-Nazism. Ukrainian soldiers, especially the Banderaist Azov Battalion, often openly swear allegiance to Nazism. Even after several such pieces of evidence, the West continues to embrace Ukraine and allegedly use it as a pawn against Russia.
The Russian government has been highlighting these updates to expose the West’s hypocrisy on the issue of fascism, as the latter continues to provide Ukraine with money and weapons to carry on a proxy war against Moscow. However, the West has often rejected the allegations and ensured that the Nazi forces are strengthened in Ukraine.
The Russian embassy in Canada sent a note to both the foreign ministry of Canada as well as the Prime minister’s office in Ottawa showing objections to the Nazi war criminal’s felicitation by the Canadian Parliament. “By honouring a member of this criminal community, the Canadian cabinet and members of parliament violated not only moral but also legal norms”, Russian Ambassador to Ottawa Oleg Stepanov said.