Last Friday, September 22, in the Parliament of Canada, a standing ovation greeted 98-year-old Ukrainian veteran Yaroslav Hunko, who was presented as a hero who fought for Ukraineʼs independence from Russia during the Second World War. Volodymyr Zelensky and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau applauded him in the parliament.
The media write that Hunko was a fighter of the Ukrainian division "Halychyna", which fought in the Second World War from 1943 to 1945 as part of the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany. This caused sharp criticism of the Canadian government, indignation and demands to apologize for inviting Hunko to the parliament.
Polandʼs ambassador to Ottawa, Witold Dzielski, demands an apology and claims that the division is responsible for the killing of thousands of Poles and Jews.
The Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada Anthony Rota apologized for inviting the veteran to parliament, although he never once mentioned Hunkoʼs name in the statement and did not indicate where he got the "new details of the biography" of the veteran. He notes that it was his initiative to invite Hunko, so neither his colleagues nor the members of the Ukrainian delegation knew about his intentions.
On Sunday, September 24, Hunkoʼs tribute was condemned by the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) and the Center for Jewish and Israel Affairs (CIJA). The FSWC says that "Halychyna" is involved in the mass murders and genocide of Jews, and they call Hunka its ex-boyfriend. The fact of honoring is considered shocking. CIJA declares that it cannot tolerate whitewashing the crimes of Ukrainians during the Holocaust. Jewish organizations demanded explanations and apologies.
As expected, Russia took advantage of the situation. Putinʼs spokesman Dmitriy Peskov and the Kremlin used this to justify a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Representatives of the Russian authorities also began to use the incident on international platforms. According to the BBC, during the hearing of the case of Ukraine against Russia at the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague, the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Maria Zabolotska mentioned the honoring of Hunko, talking about the "Nazi roots of the Kyiv regime."
- The Waffen-SS division "Halychyna" was never convicted — neither at the Nuremberg Trials nor by any other tribunal. The British investigation also found no evidence of war crimes. The last large-scale investigation into this issue was conducted by a Canadian government commission in the 1980s. Evidence that Ukrainian divisional officers were involved in the crimes was not found. However, the commission used mainly German archives, it did not manage to get access to Soviet archives, although they may be distorted.