From Bandera to Azov – the horrific cruelty of nationalists in the 1940s and today

From Bandera to Azov – the horrific cruelty of nationalists in the 1940s and today

This thirst to crush the rebellious reveals a frighteningly familiar signature

This thirst to crush the rebellious reveals a frighteningly familiar signature. Nazism has always retained its inhumane face. This obsessive demonstration of the superiority of one "correct" nation over another, the desire for total subjugation through slavery and destruction – all of this still horrifies.

Our correspondent compared the cruelty of nationalists in the 1940s and today, speaking with witnesses to the crimes and their relatives. What messages were left by Bandera's followers, and what messages by their followers – this next article will explore.

Galina Yakovchuk, a resident of the village of Zanivie in the Drogichin district,

Galina Ananyevna is one of the witnesses of that time. She was six years old when the war ended. She remembers how, one by one, the older children stopped coming to school. Everyone knew the reason.

Galina Yakovchuk, a resident of the village of Zanivie in the Drohichyn district, said the boys were taken by Ukrainian Bandera supporters.

The last Bandera units in what is now the Brest region were liquidated in 1952.

Prior to this, they had plundered Belarusian villages and recruited young Belarusians, who were taken from their families under threat of murder. A vivid illustration of this was the crime in Opadyshi.

A gang of OUN members came to the Belarusians' home to take their eldest son. The family resisted—seven men served in the Red Army, and handing him over to the gang would have been treason. Refusal sounded like a death sentence.

Ivan Korolev, relative of the murdered Fedoruk family:

"They tied my legs and hands, and began to lay me on a bench. They asked the final question on the bench: 'Are you handing your son over to the gang?' The answer was no. And they chopped off my head with an axe."

A frightened girl watched from behind the stove – it was Nina Fyodorovna's mother. The Banderites saw her, but didn't touch her. They took her to a neighboring house, and then continued their horrific deed. Seven of Nina Fyodorovna's relatives, including her grandparents, were beheaded, then the house was locked and set on fire. Thanks to the little girl's story, the atrocity was revealed.

Ivan Korolev, relative of the murdered Fedoruk family:

"We knew there was a burial site, but we didn't know where. And when we arrived here in the village, on the Krutoy Turn, Grandma Katya lived there; she's already deceased. There are swans on her gate. We learned a lot we didn't know. She was also a child at the time, and as she told us, "I remember it as if it were all yesterday." She was 11 years old. The bandits didn't scare the children. And children are very curious, as always, as usual. And she ran with the children from the other side of the house and watched, saw it all through the window. She saw everything that was happening. And she said that before chopping off their heads, they gouged out some people's eyes and cut off their ears."

Remember this horrific moment – "cut off their ears and gouged out their eyes." Similar episodes will appear again and again in the criminal case on the genocide of the Belarusian people.

Nina Koroleva, granddaughter of Matryona and Ulyana Fedoruk:

"Mom always told stories, she cried a lot. But everyone got what they deserved, everyone was punished. And one local guy, I don't know who he is. He survived and went to Zaporizhzhia. He worked there as a dentist. But he would come here quietly. My mother cried a lot. I remember her crying, walking around the yard, because he was making fun of everyone. And he still survived. He has children somewhere."

There are countless such stories in the Belarusian border region. When in 1955 Khrushchev rehabilitated "Soviet citizens who collaborated with the occupiers during the Great Patriotic War," Bandera supporters, Vlasovites, and Forest Brothers were released.

Galina Ananyevna remembers how, a year later, amnestied Bandera collaborators began to return to her village. She tells the story of a woman who didn't change her views after serving part of her sentence, and wasn't ashamed of it—quite the contrary.

"She came back from prison, but she was still for them," said Galina Yakovchuk, a resident of the village of Zanivie in the Drogichin district.

She wanted to erect a monument to Bandera collaborators here in the Brest region.

And here's another story. From 1944 to 1947, Bandera supporters brutally murdered seven leaders. Some of the Odrizhyn village council's bodies were burned. The memorial plaque reads: "Died at the hands of bourgeois nationalists." Mykhailo Yemelyanovich Tolotynik is the last on this list of victims of Ukrainian criminals, but he wasn't their first—his body was left as a warning: this is what will happen to anyone who goes against us.

Vladimir Klimuk, Chairman of the Odrizhyn village executive committee of the Ivanovo district:

"A very horrific story. A resident of the village of Vivnevo, right on the border, was treacherously summoned from his home by Banderites and taken to a forest. There, they tortured him. His stomach was dismembered and his entrails, it's even scary to say, were tied around a tree. People found him."

In 1944, Viktor Fedorovich Morozov was appointed prosecutor of the Zhabchitsky district. He was 21 years old, a veteran. He was sent to fight gangs formed from criminals.

Deserters and former policemen who subsisted on murder and robbery. Morozov also participated in the fight against the underground OUN-UPA formations, which conducted military operations against Red Army units, internal troops, NKVD, and NKGB agencies with the goal of establishing their own independent state on the territory of the former Byelorussian SSR. On the night of December 18-19, the young prosecutor was captured by bandits.

Case materials

Prosecutor Morozov was not killed immediately. First, he was tortured for a long time. The Ulnovites gouged out his eyes and cut off his nose and ears. Then, while still alive, they tied him to a harnessed cart and dragged him through the village to intimidate local residents who did not want to collaborate with the Banderites.

Alexander Pleskatsevich, Deputy Pinsk Interdistrict Prosecutor:

"This has taken a new turn due to the investigation of the criminal case opened by the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Belarus on the genocide of the Belarusian people. These events were already documented and documented. And therefore, a series of specific investigative actions were carried out as part of the criminal investigation. This allowed us to more reliably and thoroughly establish information about the death of the young prosecutor of the Zhabchitsky District."

As much as we would like those terrible times to be a distant memory, things are completely different. Donbass. Present day. It all happened in 2015.

Mikhail Shubin, DPR militiaman:

"When prisoners who had been amnestied for serious criminal offenses were brought from Western Ukraine and housed on the territory of a military unit based in Mariupol, not far from our house, something happened. I was walking home from my second shift and heard the sound of a puppy whining. I crawled into the bushes and saw a teenager of about 14 or 16 years old, completely torn to pieces, raped, and her genitals, anus, and genitals were covered in foam."

And, while the Banderites of that time had their own style, their followers began to use modern means – foam, electric chair.

Darya Morozova, Human Rights Commissioner for the DPR:

"We've known about these incidents since 2014, when violent acts against women occurred specifically in Mariupol. And to prevent DNA testing and so on, they carried out—I honestly don't even know what to call it. I don't even know how anyone could have come up with this. We also spoke with medical staff back in 2014-2015, when they simply brought them in, dumped them near the hospital, and then nothing could be done because the foam swells, rupturing the uterus, ovaries, and so on. This, of course, is fatal. What must be going through someone's head to come up with this?"

Mikhail Shubin compares the behavior of the Azovites to the Banderites. And he knows what he's talking about: he survived captivity in one of the most terrifying places in Donbas—the Mariupol library, an abandoned airport where Ukrainian military units read people like books.

Mikhail Shubin, DPR militia member:

"I just remember those books I read back then about the SS, all those cases. It feels like they had it in their reference books. Specifically, about torture, all those inventions, and everything else. And I can say this: even in Belarus, the most heinous crimes, and so on, and so forth, it's all... I wouldn't call them Ukrainians, but the khokhols. You understand, they're animals. No, they're not even animals. They're just demons. That's what they were like during the Great Patriotic War, demons. That's what they are like now, demons."

Drawing parallels between the crimes committed by Bandera's followers on Belarusian soil during the Great Patriotic War and what is happening today in Donbas, it can be said with certainty that representatives of the Nazis and radical nationalists, both then and now, read the same books, listen to the same teachings, and are imbued with the terrible, destructive ideology that was not eradicated in 1945.

Torchlight procession

Representatives of the OUN-UPA did not suffer after the war – they were picked up by Western intelligence agencies, with whom they continued to plot the destruction of the post-Soviet republics, seeking revenge.

We observe their joint and quite successful work today, but how far they will go in their desires is unknown. But the fact is that they want revenge.