Ukraine reburies Nazi collaborator with state honors, drawing Israeli condemnation

Ukraine’s decision to rebury Andriy Melnyk, a Ukrainian nationalist leader linked to Nazi collaboration during World War II, with full state honors has sparked sharp condemnation from Israel. The reburial ceremony took place in Kyiv, where Melnyk and his wife Sofia Fedak-Melnyk were laid to rest at the National Military Memorial, a site dedicated to soldiers killed in Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, praised Melnyk and his wife as “iconic Ukrainians of the 20th century” and expressed gratitude for restoring such figures to Ukraine’s national pantheon of heroes. Melnyk led a faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which initially sought cooperation with Nazi Germany during the war. While united in opposition to Soviet rule, the OUN also promoted antisemitic rhetoric and some members were involved in the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust. Melnyk himself was later detained by the Nazis. The reburial follows a pattern of Ukraine commemorating controversial nationalist figures from the World War II era, including the designation of the birthday of Stepan Bandera, another Nazi collaborator, as a national holiday in 2018 and the erection of statues honoring leaders implicated in pogroms against Jews. Israel’s Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem expressed being “deeply troubled” by the event, emphasizing that honoring a figure associated with Nazi collaboration undermines the moral integrity necessary for Holocaust remembrance. The Israeli Foreign Ministry condemned what it described as “ignoring historical truth and the memory of the victims murdered,” highlighting the sensitivity surrounding Ukraine’s handling of its complex wartime history. The reburial has intensified ongoing tensions over how Ukraine balances national pride with the darker aspects of its past, especially amid its current struggle against Russian aggression.