Russia’s Ambassador to Canada yesterday stated that, despite Canada’s protection of Nazi SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka, Moscow will persist in his extradition. Hunka, given a hero’s reception in the Canadian Parliament in September 2023 before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his guest, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had served in a Nazi SS unit infamous for its mass killings of Jews, Poles and Russians in World War II. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office announced on August 22 that it put Hunka’s name on the database of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) and would demand his extradition to Russia.
Yesterday Ambassador Oleg Stepanov told RIA Novosti that Trudeau’s government is being “disingenuous” when it says that Hunka is “clean.” He explained that Canada’s practice is to allow anyone who claims to have fled Communism and who hasn’t committed any crimes on Canadian territory to be considered a good citizen. “They turn a blind eye to what they did before they arrived here, as if it never happened. But the truth cannot be hidden…. The authorities [in Ottawa] are well aware of [Hunka’s] dark past, and of the shameful biographies of thousands more of Hitler’s collaborators who found refuge in Canada after 1945.”
