Acting Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and other Ukrainian leaders took part in a solemn burial of Andriy Melnyk, a notorious Ukrainian fascist during World War II, who had been buried in exile in Luxemburg.](https://spzh.eu/en/amp-news/93314-israel-calls-oun-leader-a-collaborator-and-condemns-his-reburial-in-ukraine) Melnyk, who from 1938 led the Organization Nationalist Unity, which broke with the Banderites in 1940, continued to work through the war with the Nazi regime even until the German withdrawal from occupied areas due to the movement of the Soviet Army into the region.
At the end of the war, Melnyk established relations with the Western powers to participate in the postwar intelligence operations against the Soviet Union. He also helped organize British efforts, with corrupt elements of US intelligence, to set up the extensive Ukrainian networks in Canada, which exist to this present day.
Most of the government gathered for the ceremony, including former Ukrainian president, Viktor Yuschenko. The ceremony was also an attempt to transform the Ukrainian Military Memorial Cemetery into a home for Ukrainian “heroes” (i.e. a center for Ukrainian nationalism) and is likely a further step in consolidating the Banderite tradition in Ukraine. The reburial ceremony was preceded by services at the Greek Orthodox Church in Kiev.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry as well as the Yad Vashem Holocaust Center vociferously protested the attempt to whitewash the actions of such a noted anti-Semite as Melnyk. In response, the present head of the ONU demanded a retraction and an apology from Israel.
