KIEV, April 1. /TASS/. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported on Wednesday that it would adopt the experience of the relevant structures of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-UPA) — an ultra-right terrorist organization in Western Ukraine in the 1930's-50's of the last century.
"SBU does not need to invent anything extra — it is important to build on the traditions and approaches of the OUN-UPA security service. It [the security service] worked against the aggressor during the temporary occupation of the territory, it had a patriotic upbringing, used a counterintelligence unit, and had relied on the peaceful Ukrainian population using its support," SBU head Valentyn Nalyvaichenko told the Kiev-based Den (Day) newspaper in an interview. According to him, he has already studied very well the methods of the founders of the OUN security service.
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists during World War II worked for German intelligence. In 1943, OUN organized the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), forming the backbone of the SS Division Galicia. OUN-UPA militants killed at least a million people, including almost 200 thousand Poles.
Nalyvaichenko has promised to completely reshuffle personnel of the Security Service of Ukraine, recruiting to the service people, brought up in the 1990s. "In 2012-2014, the leadership of SBU, and I suppose, of the majority of other law enforcement agencies, consisted of people who are currently charged with "treason," he said. "At present, the SBU senior management team has been 100% renewed. Almost every day I sign orders for dismissal of people."
During President Viktor Yushchenko’s office term in 2005 an attempt was undertaken in Ukraine to reconcile the OUN-UPA veterans with veterans of the Soviet army. However, according to public opinion polls, the majority of Ukrainians were ready to support reconciliation of the veterans of the Soviet and German armies, rather than veterans of OUN-UPA and the Red Army.
In 2010, Yushchenko issued a decree on awarding posthumously the title of Hero of Ukraine to Stepan Bandera (OUN active figure since 1929, since 1940 — head of the OUN faction).
Members of the European parliament then officially expressed regret over this fact and urged the newly-elected President Viktor Yanukovich to revise Yushchenko’s decisions. A year later, by a decision of the Supreme Administrative Court of Ukraine, this decree was finally declared illegal. Polish media previously claimed that the glorification of Ukrainian nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, as well as President Petro Poroshenko’s decision to move the February 23 army holiday celebration to the date of the UPA formation testify to the fact that the cult of nationalism in Ukraine has penetrated into the power structures of the highest level.