You're reading: Sevastopol city council condemns hero title award for Bandera

Sevastopol, January 26 (Interfax-Ukraine) - Sevastopol City Council, expressing the will of local residents, has condemned the awarding of the Hero of Ukraine title to Stepan Bandera. A statement passed at a council plenary meeting on January 26 reads that council deputies "condemn President Viktor Yuschenko's action in the glorification of accomplices to fascists such as [Roman] Shukhevych, Bandera and others similar to them," and will never recognize them as heroes.

"We demand that presidential candidates Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych make an assessment of the decrees on awarding the Hero of Ukraine titles to Roman Shukhevych and Stepan Bandera and ensure that they are cancelled once one of them assumes office," reads the document.

The deputies said they were against rewriting history and demanded that the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, immediately consider and pass a bill drafted by Regions Party MP Vadym Kolesnichenko, which bans the rehabilitation and glorification of fascist collaborators of 1933-1945.

The city council also described the decision to confer the Hero of Ukraine rank to Bandera as a blow to Ukraine’s reputation on the international arena and a step to split the country.