You're reading: New head of National Memory Institute: Conferring title of hero to Bandera and Shukhevych is big mistake

The new head of the Ukrainian National Memory Institute (UNMI), Valeriy Soldatenko, has said it was "a big mistake" to award the hero of Ukraine title to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and Roman Shukhevych, the commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

"I believe this was a big mistake, [and] this should not have been done, as this man, who held a military rank of an aggressor state that was at war not only with the Soviet Union, but with half of Europe, can’t be a hero of Ukraine. Shukhevych had the rank of a [German] Wehrmacht officer," he said in an interview with the Kommersant-Ukraine newspaper, which was posted on Wednesday.

The historian said there are no scientific reasons for awarding this title to them. According to him, academic and scientific circles considered this decision ungrounded. "With this decision, political goals were pursued, but not scientific ones. Conferring the title of Hero to Bandera and Shukhevych shows Ukrainian politics and politicians not in their best light," he added.

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