Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland holds a press conference in the National Press Theatre in Ottawa on Oct. 5.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has accused Vladimir Putin of “weaponizing” the Canadian Parliament’s honouring of a Waffen-SS veteran during an official visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month.
The Russian President said on Thursday that former Speaker Anthony Rota’s tribute to 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka supported Russia’s view that one of its goals was to de-Nazify Ukraine.
Mr. Hunka, who was invited to sit in the Commons visitors’ gallery during Mr. Zelensky’s visit, received two standing ovations from MPs and was hailed by Mr. Rota as a Ukrainian and Canadian hero who had fought against the Russians.
Mr. Putin is claiming Mr. Rota had grouped together Ukrainian SS troops with Ukrainians fighting the Russians today.
“[Rota] essentially lumped together Nazi collaborators, SS troops and the Ukrainian military of today who are fighting against Russia,” Mr. Putin said to a question in the Russian city of Sochi. “This only confirms our thesis that one of our goals in Ukraine is de-Nazification.”
Mr. Hunka enlisted in the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, made up of Ukrainian volunteers, in 1943 as a teenager. The division was set up by Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and one of Adolf Hitler’s closest henchmen, after the German defeat at the battle of Stalingrad in a bid to stem the Soviet advance.
At a press conference in Ottawa, Ms. Freeland said Mr. Rota had “made a really big mistake” and a “grave error” by the honouring of a member of the Nazi-led unit.
“It caused a lot of pain to a lot of Canadians and it was wrong,” she said, adding the hurt was felt in particular by Canada’s Jewish community.
But she accused the Russian President of exploiting the error by the former Speaker, who had apologized and resigned after the incident, for propaganda purposes.
“We can’t change the fact that he made that mistake. We can, though, all of us decide how effective Vladimir Putin is at weaponizing that mistake,” she said. “And I would really urge all of us to understand that Russian propaganda is real.”
Since the start of its invasion, the Kremlin has claimed that Ukraine is riddled with Nazis and its invasion is an attempt to de-Nazify and demilitarize the country. The claims have been roundly dismissed by Canada, the U.S. and Britain as disinformation by the Russian regime to try to justify its war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Sept. 22. Yaroslav Hunka watches and applauds at far right, centre.Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press
Professor David Marples, an expert on the history of Ukraine at the University of Alberta, said Mr. Putin’s assertions about Nazism in Ukraine were not borne out by fact, and it is also not an antisemitic country, adding that Mr. Zelensky is Jewish.
The author of Heroes and Villains, which examines the history of Ukraine, says given the renewed interest in the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, it would be worthwhile to revisit the history of the Second World War with panels, discussions and studies by academics looking objectively into the period. He said 2.5 million Ukrainians joined the Red Army to fight the Nazi war machine.
Prof. Marples is among those calling for the disclosure of an unpublished part of a report by the Deschênes Commission, which in the mid-1980s examined claims that Canada was playing host to war criminals. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister said senior civil servants were looking into publishing the report and also digging into the archives.
The university’s Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) has received endowments, awards and donations worth around $1-million from Ukrainians who served in the Waffen-SS Galicia Division or who helped set it up, according to research by Per Anders Rudling of Sweden’s Lund University.
They include an endowment of about $430,000 in the name of Volodymyr Kubijovych, who played a key role in the SS unit’s establishment in 1943, and collaborated with Hans Frank, Adolf Hitler’s lawyer who was implicated in the mass murder of Jews and executed for war crimes.
Mr. Kubijovych, who settled in France after the war, also edited the first and second volumes of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine.
In 1986, Ms. Freeland, who lived in Edmonton and whose mother is Ukrainian, did a summer internship at CIUS and wrote entries for the second volume, including on horse breeding, hayfields, the jute-hemp industry and insurance. Her internship was part of the federal government’s summer employment program, according to a CIUS newsletter at the time.
Peter Savaryn, who was also a Galicia Waffen-SS veteran, retired as chancellor of the University of Alberta that year. On Wednesday, Governor-General Mary Simon apologized for his 1987 appointment to the Order of Canada and any distress his appointment may have caused.