Canada honors Ukrainian World War II veteran and then found out he was a member of the Waffen SS.

 

Yaroslav Hunka (right). BBC/Alamy.

Canada honored a Ukrainian World War II veteran than then found out that he was a member of the Waffen SS. BBC. Yaroslav Hunka was honored by House Commons Speaker Anthony Rota, who called him a hero. However, Kunka was a member of the 14th Waffen SS Grenadier Division, a Nazi unit that was made up of Ukrainian volunteers and were accused of atrocities against civilians. The incident was an international embarrassment and Rota quickly backed off of his support and Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau condemned it. Ukraine has long faced accusations of using Nazis in their war against Russia and Russia has used that fact to justify the war. 

My Comment:

I'm a day late on this story but I thought it was important to cover given how utterly embarrassing it was for Canada. This was either a deliberate provocation or an act of utter incompetence. I am guessing it is the second, apparently Rota didn't even do the bare minimum vetting you would think you would do automatically before inviting someone to a major event like this. 

In retrospect this should have been incredibly obvious to anyone that has even a high school education on the Eastern Front in World War II. Pretty much everyone who fought against the Russians in World War II was either a Nazi or an ally of the Nazis with only Finland remaining even remotely sympathetic. Not that the Soviets were any better, given that they were communists, but, again, this should be very obvious stuff.  

I think ignorance of history like this is pretty common. Indeed, I don't think there would be anywhere near the support Ukraine. Ukraine has a long history of supporting Nazis and I do think there is truth to Russia's complaints about Ukraine needing to be denazified. It absolutely brings a lot of moral ambiguity to the war that a lot of people refuse to acknowledge. 

Indeed, Trudeau went right back to supporting Ukraine after this incident and was more upset that Russia would get propaganda out of this. He said that the idea that Ukraine is full of Nazis is Russian disinformation, despite the fact that everyone should know by now that Nazis are fairly common in the Ukrainian armed forces.  

The one person I haven't heard much from during this incident is Zelensky himself. Zelensky tends to get a free hand with this stuff since he is ethnically Jewish but he doesn't seem to mind Nazis all that much. You would think that Zelensky would be more outspoken about people that presumably want to kill him because he's a member of a religion they hate, but you would also think that Nazis wouldn't join up to fight for a country led by a Jew. It just shows how complicated the Ukraine war is. 

Regardless, this whole thing was completely avoidable. It does not speak well for the competence of House Speaker Anthony Rota and it also doesn't speak well for all the lemmings clapping along when he was honoring Hunka. Like I said, it should have been obvious from the start that this guy was a Nazi and the fact that nobody caught it was a huge embarrassment for Canada...