VLadimir Putin is accustomed to dressing up Ukrainian nationalists with the term “Banderovtsi”: Banderists. A way of “Nazifying” Ukrainian nationalism since Stepan Bandera, leader of the OUN, had collaborated with the Nazis, especially after the invasion of the USSR in 1941. For their part, the Ukrainian fighters appeal to the memory of Stepan Bandera, named a “hero of Ukraine” in 2018 by former Ukrainian President Poroshenko “for invincibility of spirit in the pursuit of the national idea, heroism and sacrifice in the fight for the independence of the Ukrainian state.
A first attempt, initiated by Yushchenko in 2010, was canceled the following year after the accession to power of Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president. In 2016, Poroshenko…
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