On 22 September 2023, during a visit by Volodymyr Zelensky, the Canadian Parliament gave a standing ovation to a Ukrainian Nazi who had fought in the SS Galicia division, Yaroslav Hunka, presenting him as having fought for the freedom of Ukraine against the USSR. When the truth about Hunka’s membership of the SS Galicia division came to light, the Canadian authorities shamelessly lied, claiming not to know who this man really was. In the wake of this, some people tried to delete his biography page on Wikipedia, in order to cover up the truth. Here’s a look back at the scandal.
While he was in Canada demanding more money and weapons, Volodymyr Zelensky went to the Canadian Parliament, where a standing ovation was given to a Ukrainian veteran, Yaroslav Hunka, presented by the Speaker of Parliament as having fought for Ukrainian independence against Russia during the Second World War.
Except that for anyone familiar with the history of the Second World War, there’s a problem, and a big one. At the time, the only army fighting the USSR in Europe was that of Nazi Germany. And when you look into his past, including the autobiographical words of Yaroslav Hunka, published in 2011 on a blog in honour of Ukrainian veterans, it turns out that he fought in the 14th SS Galicia Division! Yaroslav Hunka was a SS, who fought for the Nazis! What’s more, the SS Galicia division is accused by Poland of having murdered the 1,000 inhabitants of the Polish village of Huta Pieniacka on 28 February 1944.
As a result, this information very quickly triggered an international scandal. Poland, Russia and the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre took up the cause, pointing out the war crimes committed by the SS Galicia division to which Yaroslav Hounka belonged. Some also point out that Canada welcomed thousands of Ukrainian supporters of the Nazis and Stepan Bandera with open arms after the Second World War, without questioning their ideology or any war crimes they may have committed. This standing ovation for a Ukrainian Nazi fighter in front of the entire Canadian Parliament came as a shock, opening some people’s eyes to the true nature of the “Ukrainian defenders of freedom”, and to what the West is really supporting when it funds and arms today’s Ukraine.
Naturally, in view of the extent of the scandal, the Speaker of the Canadian Parliament, Anthony Rota, apologised and then resigned, in order to act as a fuse in this affair, which was now tarnishing the entire Canadian government. Volodymyr Zelensky was conspicuous by his silence on the matter. It is striking to see the extent to which the Ukrainian president (who is Jewish himself, and whose grandfather fought the Nazis) has become so accustomed to the Nazi or neo-Nazi views of his fellow citizens that he no longer even reacts when such a scandal breaks. Poland, for its part, began to demand the extradition of Yaroslav Hounka in order to bring him to trial.
And that’s where the ball of nonsense began. Karina Gould, head of government in the Canadian parliament, proposed that the recording of Yaroslav Hunka’s standing ovation be purely and simply deleted from the minutes of parliament! Yes, you read that right, in the face of this scandal, Justin Trudeau’s government has attempted purely and simply to delete from the official recordings of this session of the Canadian parliament the standing ovation given to a Ukrainian Nazi fighter. So once the goldfish, sorry, their fellow Canadians have forgotten this incident in a few years’ time, there would be no official record of this scandal! Fortunately, this attempt failed when some MPs refused to vote for such a measure.
An even bigger lie, Gould claims that the Trudeau government did not know in advance who Yaroslav Hunka was. As a journalist, and even more so as someone who has been in contact with heads of state, I can assure you that no one meets a head of state at an official ceremony, in a government building, without having been clearly identified, and their background checked! And in this case there were two heads of state: Trudeau and Zelensky! Which means that the guy had his biography checked not by one security service but by two!
What’s more, as Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett discovered, in 2007 Yaroslav Hunka received a Medal of Merit from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. This organisation is directly connected to Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland (the Canadian Deputy Prime Minister whose grandfather was also an active Nazi collaborator in Ukraine).
So to claim that they didn’t know who Yaroslav Hunka was is a huge lie. They simply tried to present him in a favourable light (fighting for the freedom of Ukraine against Russia), hoping that nobody would notice the deception. Unfortunately for them, there are still people who know the history of the Second World War, or who know how to search the Internet for information about this Ukrainian Nazi fighter.
And that’s where we come to the attempt to have the Wikipedia page containing the biography of Yaroslav Hunka deleted. Having failed to have the official recording of the standing ovation in front of the Canadian Parliament removed, some people then tried to have the Wikipedia entry for the former Ukrainian Nazi fighter removed (see the image illustrating the article). Clearly, the current period is increasingly reminiscent of the novel 1984. But once again this has sparked a scandal, and the page, which only yesterday was marked “for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia’s deletion policy”, no longer displays this message.
We will have to remain vigilant and check regularly to see if the page still exists in a few months’ time. But what has happened clearly shows that what the West denounces as Russian propaganda about the presence and development of Nazi and neo-Nazi ideology in Ukraine is only the truth, and that it upsets the official Western narrative. It has to be said that arming, financing and cheering Nazis for governments that claim to be fighting against this ideology is a bit of a stain…
Christelle Néant
Translation: Яннис В.Зброек
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