Ukraine Today - An Independent Political Review

International reaction Yushchenko’s decree has caused turmoil and provoked a strong reaction not only in Ukraine, but also abroad. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the awarding of the Hero of Ukraine to Stepan Bandera as unacceptable: “Any glorification, recognition given to the people who participated in vile actions against people, innocent people, my own people, is something we cannot accept,” the Israeli prime minister said in an interview with Interfax and Kommersant daily.

  Interfax-Ukraine Moscow, February 17 (Interfax) - The awarding of the Hero of Ukraine decoration to Stepan Bandera is unacceptable, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Any glorification, recognition given to the people who participated in vile action against people, innocent people, my own people, is something we cannot accept, it's simply unacceptable," he said in an interview with Interfax and the Kommersant daily. On January 22, Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko, who lost the election, awarded the Hero of Ukraine to Bandera, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, accused by many of abetting the Nazis during World War II.

Source: ForUA Polish President Lech Kaczynski has said a decree by outgoing Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko to declare Stepan Bandera, whom many see as a Nazi collaborator during WWII, a national hero, runs contrary to the historical truth Bandera was a leader of the Ukrainian national movement in Western Ukraine and headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1941-1959. The Soviet authorities accused him of numerous acts of murder and terrorism and authorized his assassination by the KGB in Munich, Germany, on October 15, 1959. “An estimate of activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army is categorically negative in Poland,” Kaczynski said in a statement. He said the OUN and the UIA “carried out large-scale massacres” of the Polish people in eastern territories of the former Rech Pospolita, and “more than 100,000 Poles died just because they were Poles. “These killings raise unambiguous protest in Polish soci...

13:50 | Interfax-Ukraine Ukraine's Jewish community is outraged by the decision to confer the title of Hero of Ukraine posthumously to nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, with Chief Rabbi Moshe Reuven Asman of Ukraine and Kyiv saying he would give up his Order of Merit in protest. "The chief rabbi has asked our lawyers to find out how the order could be returned from a legal point of view," Asman's aide David Milman told Interfax on Feb. 2. "This position is shared by the entire Jewish community. Everyone is outraged. [Outgoing President] Viktor Yuschenko could not venture this step as long as he was hoping to remain president," he said. "This award is a call for war, as war was Bandera's credo," Milman said. Yushchenko conferred the title of Hero of Ukraine, one of the country's highest honors, to Bandera on Jan. 22, which marks the Day of Unity. This title had earlier been conferred on Commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent A...