BISHKEK, October 11. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the honoring of Yaroslav Hunka, who served in the Waffen SS Galicia division during World War II, in the Canadian parliament disgusting.
"It was stunning to see this horrible situation in the Canadian Parliament, where everyone stood up together and applauded a former Nazi, a soldier of the SS Galicia Division. It was simply disgusting," Putin said at a meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State.
Putin pointed out that the speaker of the Canadian parliament "said outright that this man fought against the Russians during World War II."
"Don't they know that the Nazis fought against the Russians? That Hitler fought against the Russians? I mean, they surely know that. Then they couldn't help but know that once he was fighting against the Russians, he was fighting against the Canadians as well. Theoretically it is possible to imagine that he also killed some Canadians, because Canada was a member of the anti-Hitler coalition, as you know," Putin said.
He stressed that "it was absolutely disgusting to see the head of the Ukrainian state - an ethnic Jew - applauding not some ideological follower of Nazism, but a man who was personally exterminating the Jewish population of Ukraine."
"This is simply disgusting," Putin said. "I hope nothing like this will ever happen in our countries."
The Russian leader drew attention to some other aspects of the incident.
"They called him a hero of Canada and a hero of Ukraine. This is nonsense. But this, unfortunately, does happen again and again," the Russian leader stated. However, he continued, to understand this whole situation one should know history well enough.
"Here we are talking about it, but in the European countries and in the United States very few people know about it. As soon as some information surfaces, it is immediately hushed up and muted. But if they prefer to go about this business like this further on, we will see the comeback of Nazism on a global scale," Putin warned.
He described such a possibility as terrible.
"We must do our utmost to ensure that nothing like this happens in our countries," he added.
Row over Nazi in Canada’s parliament
On September 22, during Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky's speech in the Canadian Parliament, the audience cheered 98-year-old Ukrainian nationalist Yaroslav Hunka, who served in the Waffen SS Galicia Division during World War II. On September 26, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly called for the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Commons (lower house of parliament), Anthony Rota. She called the incident "deeply unacceptable" and "an embarrassment to the House and to Canadians." Rota later stepped down. On September 27, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized to Canadians, Jews and Ukrainians over the incident.