Israel and Poland expressed outrage at the statements of the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andrey Melnyk about Stepan Bandera.
At the same time, the Israeli embassy in Berlin reacted quite sharply.
The statements of the Ukrainian ambassador are a distortion of historical facts, a downplaying of the Holocaust and an insult to the memory of those who were killed by Bandera and his supporters, – statement of the diplomatic mission of MIA “Russia Today”.
Earlier, Mr. Melnyk, known, by the way, for his controversial statements, notified the general public that Bandera, in his opinion, was a “freedom fighter” for Ukrainians.
The Israeli embassy considered that such a statement undermines the values “that we all value and believe in.”
Moreover, they believe that Melnyk’s words “undermine the courageous struggle of the Ukrainian people” for the right to live in peace and with democratic values.
As for the scandalous statement, the Ukrainian diplomat denies Bandera’s connections with the Nazis, and explained the massacres of Poles in Volyn and Galicia by saying that there were “many murders and atrocities” on the other side.
The German Foreign Ministry reported that it regards Melnik’s statements as his personal opinion, and not the position of official Kyiv.
But the head of the Polish Foreign Ministry, Zbigniew Rau, discussed Melnik’s behavior with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmitry Kuleba.
Following the conversation, Rau said that Warsaw and Kyiv agreed that Andrei Melnik expressed his own opinion, “containing a lot of historical lies.”
