Donetsk, Jan 21 - DAN. Glorification of Nazis and falsification of historical facts do not contribute to Ukraine’s development and its dialogue with Donbass, said Donetsk People’s Republic politicians and activists polled by the Donetsk News Agency.

On January 19, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky told The Times of Israel that the famine that struck the USSR in the 1930s had to be viewed as a genocide against the Ukrainians. He shared his plans to come up with the general history of Ukraine glorifying the personalities who did not cause divisions within the society. This would be reflected in street renaming and installation of monuments.

“The Ukrainian president’s new statement on Golodomor as a genocide against the Ukrainian people is a surprising reminder of (Viktor) Yushchenko’s all-out attempt  to urge the nation and the international community to consider the 1932 famine in the USSR as “a genocide against the Ukrainian people.” The double talk attempt and falsification of historic events has long become a norm for Ukrainian polity-makers,” DPR parliamentarian Alexander Kurenkov said.

He also said that he felt indignant at Ukraine’s recent trend to glorify Nazis and collaborationists. “It contradicts the common sense,” Kurenkov said.

“Glorifying traitors and Nazis while crying over their victims is the attempt to play a double game or an advanced stage of psychological disorder.”
His colleague Alexander Kamyshov drew attention to ongoing de-communisation in Ukraine. For example, Kiev authorities decided to rename Marshall Grechko Street to Hetman Ivan Vygovsky Street; the later tried to join Russian districts to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; there is also a bid to rename the USSR Hero Ivan Shevtsov Streets to honour gunman Vasily Makukha of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army which is recognised as extremist in the DPR.

“Following loud populist statements, things didn’t make much headway; local officials continue to make decisions on renaming streets and dismantling monuments while Zelensky’s unsubstantiated words  remain just background noise,” Kamyshov said. “The president urges people to consolidate perpetuating the memory of Ukraine’s present-day heroes. What people does he mean? The “Heavenly Hundred” members?  Of those who take part in the punitive operation against the Donbass people? With rampaging nationalists who enjoy full support of Ukrainian authorities, one has doubts that Ukrainains will be allowed to perpetuate the memory of the people who really deserve it.

“There are no “common heroes” in Ukraine. Those who view Bandera, Shukhevich and their associates as heroes will never have regard for our heroes such as Zhukov and Vatutin and always hate them; as we will hate their heroes.  Ukraine is ideologically inhomogenous country; it is an admittedly long-standing fact that cannot be changed,” Donetsk education officer Maria Sevko said.

Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Yekaterina Zelenko said that “each people and each country independently names its heroes and fetes them.” She said so in response to the statements by Polish and Israeli Ambassadors Bartos Cichocki and Joel Lion who had criticised Ukraine for honouring Stepan Bandera and other Ukrainian nationalist leaders. Later on, Zelensky ordered the Cabinet to set up an organising committee on preparing a memorial to the “Ukrainian heroes” who resisted the “Russian aggression” in the 20th century.*jk