A Ukrainian nationalist association on Friday slammed a European Parliament resolution the day before that expressed hope that Ukraine's new president would strip 1940s nationalist militant leader Stepan Bandera of the posthumous title of Hero of Ukraine conferred on him by the former president last month.
"The resolution of the European Parliament is based on a distorted vision of the history of Ukraine that was formed by Soviet pseudo-historiography," the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists said in a statement.
The Congress accused the European Union legislature of taking "the side of Stalin’s totalitarian regime of occupation, which denied the Ukrainians the right to a state of their own."
"The Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists would like to mention that there exists no court ruling proving that the OUN, the UPA or Stepan Bandera personally collaborated with the Nazi regime, and no such ruling was issued during the Nuremberg trials either," it said.
The OUN, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, was a group of which Bandera was one of the leaders. The UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) was a guerrilla army and the OUN’s military wing.
In its resolution, the European Parliament said it "deeply deplores" the conferment of the title of Hero of Ukraine on Bandera by former President Viktor Yuschenko and expressed hope that Viktor Yanukovych, who was sworn in as president on Thursday, would deprive Bandera of the title.
The European Parliament accused the OUN of collaborating with Nazi Germany.
