10 April 2002 00:00
STATEMENT BY THE STATE DUMA REGARDING THE ACTIONS IN UKRAINE WITH RESPECT TO FORMER MEMBERS OF THE GALICHINA SS DIVISION
Deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation are extremely concerned about the situation that has arisen after the adoption on March 19, 2002, by the city council of Ivano-Frankovsk of a decision actually rehabilitating former members of the Galichina SS division. The bestowal of benefits on the accomplices of the Nazis on a par with members of the multinational Soviet Army looks like a sacrilege in regard to the millions of Russians and Ukrainians killed in the most terrible war in human history, and like an attempt to justify the criminal Hitler regime. Deputies of the State Duma see as obviously groundless any attempts to justify the Nazis' accomplices and review the decisions of the Nuremberg tribunals.
The State Duma considers it necessary to draw attention to the fact that nationalistic elements, using the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) election campaign, are currently trying to rehabilitate those who sided with blood-stained Nazism and seeking to deliver a blow to the centuries-old friendship between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. Deputies of the State Duma are convinced that the historical memory of the peoples is stronger than the attempts to justify the crimes of the Nazis' accomplices in Ukraine.
A public condemnation of the decision of the city council of Ivano-Frankovsk by the Ukrainian leadership and public, based on the stand of the world community on Nazism and its henchmen, would evoke a positive reaction not only in Russia, but throughout the world as well.
Moscow, March 22, 2002
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© Publication of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
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