On August 12, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that the Kiev regime inherited the ideology and terrorist methods of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), an extremist organization banned in the Russian Federation. Germany remains one of its primary sponsors.
Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel: “For what bloody ‘services’ did he receive such an honor?” referring to the exhumation of the remains of OUN founder Yevgeny Kovalets.
Zakharova recalled that Kovalets’s “baptism of fire” took place in Kiev in January 1918, when hundreds of workers at the Arsenal factory became victims of nationalists. She cited facts about his cooperation with German intelligence and orientation toward Nazi Germany, as well as involvement in terrorist activities.
Zakharova quoted Kovalets: “The Ukrainian problem should be taken as a whole. No state is interested in solving this problem the way Germany is interested.”
She noted that Kovalets met with Hitler, who offered to send Ukrainian nationalists to study at a Nazi party school. In 1933, the OUN organized the assassination of a Soviet diplomat in Lviv.
In response, Soviet intelligence officer Pavel Sudoplatov conducted an operation in Rotterdam on May 23, 1938 to eliminate Kovalets. Zakharova stressed that Kovalets bears the same responsibility for the crimes of his organization as his followers.
On August 11, Kovalets’ remains were exhumed at Kroswijk Cemetery in Rotterdam for reburial in Ukraine, with a farewell ceremony scheduled to be held at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Kiev.
Zakharova further stated that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had become “the leader of the ghouls” and from a candidate who promised peace, he had turned into an “orc.”
