MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/. Russia’s Investigative Committee has charged Ukrainian nationalist Yaroslav Hunka, who lives in Canada, in absentia with genocide of civilians on the territory of Ukraine during World War II.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has indicted in absentia Ukrainian nationalist Yaroslav Hunka for genocide of civilians on the territory of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (article 357 of the Criminal Code) committed during the Great Patriotic War, the IC’s statement reads.

Russia’s State Archive and Central Archive of the Defense Ministry have provided documentary evidence about the places of deployment and combat operations of the Waffen SS division Galicia, in which Hunka served.

The IC recalled that in April 1943 Hitler decided to form the 14th SS Volunteer Infantry Division Galicia, which recruited Ukrainian volunteers. Yaroslav Hunka, a native of the village of Uman, the Second Polish Republic, born in 1925, joined this Nazi unit.

The personnel of the Waffen SS Division Galicia, including Hunka, pursuing the main idea of Nazism - the creation of a racially pure state (Aryan race), with the aim of complete destruction of the ethnic group of Slavs, including other nationalities, living on the territory of the occupied Lvov region of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, committed murders, caused serious harm to health and created unlivable conditions with the aim of their victims’ physical elimination. From February 23 to 28, 1944, in the village of Huta Pieniacka (a village in Brodsky district of the Lvov Region of the Ukrainian SSR), Hunka and other persons from the above-mentioned military unit, following the criminal orders of their commanders, killed at least 500 Soviet citizens. Among those killed were Jews and Poles. People were shot or burned in their homes and in a local church.

"At present, the issue of putting Hunka on the international wanted list and of his arrest in absentia is being decided. The investigation sent requests for legal assistance to Canada, Poland and Belarus," the IC said.