15.03.2019, Moscow.
The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has brought criminal charges against the Chairman of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (UINR) Vladimir Vyatrovich for episodes of glorification of Nazi criminals, the Committee press service reports on March 14.
According to the investigators, starting from late 2014 the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance chaired by Vyatrovich, under the guise of studying state history, has been rehabilitating and commemorating war criminals, whose acts of atrocity against civilians were proven by the Nuremberg International Tribunal in 1946.
Vyatrovich denies the affiliation of the nationalists from OUN-UPA (organizations banned in Russia) with Hitler’s SS units, whose criminal role in atrocities and murders, including those committed in concentration camps, was specifically highlighted and proven.
The Committee’s statement stresses that according to the Nuremberg Tribunal’s decision, no SS unit can be whitewashed, because the entire organization was found criminal. The glorification of the criminals is even more inconceivable in a country whose population was really killed by fascists and their accomplices.
“The denial of any facts established in Nuremberg, and consequently, of the outcome of World War Two, as well as the glorification of Nazi criminals cannot be left without attention. Persons responsible for such actions must be lawfully punished. The Investigative Committee of Russia will continue to identify and prevent these kinds of crimes,” the statement says.
The UINR was opened during Viktor Yushchenko’s administration in 2006 on the model of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. The Institute was tasked with the “restoration of a just Ukrainian nation” and “forming the state policy accordingly.”
The Institute is also responsible for the “de-colonization” of Ukrainians, i.e. the formation of a Ukrainian identity which is completely detached from the Russian one, and the destruction of “the legend of affinity between the Ukrainians and the Russians.” The crackdown on Soviet symbols and memorials of historical figures having any connection to Russia is a responsibility of the Institute and Vyatrovich’s job.
However, the largest part of the UINR activity focuses on de-communization and the changing of the pantheon of heroes, when Soviet heroes of the Great Patriotic War are labeled “fictitious,” while the Bandera Nazis, whom the Nuremberg International Tribunal recognized as war criminals, are glorified.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
