There is no statute of limitations for Nazi crimes, and ignorance of the history of the Second World War breeds “new manifestations of fascism,” Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said, commenting on the appearance in the Canadian parliament of 98-year-old Yaroslav Honka, a former member of the SS “Galician” division.
Peskov, deputy head of the Russian president’s office, said, “No matter how old they are, there is no statute of limitations on these crimes here… … Such hasty sloppiness is certainly outrageous.”
Peskov said a generation growing up in the West did not understand the history of the 20th century.
A Kremlin spokesman added: “We know that many Western countries, including Canada, have raised a young generation that has no idea who fought who and what happened during the Second World War. They are ignorant of the threat of fascism. This breeds that fascism will manifest itself here and there. And we are now seeing how it is trying to get back on its feet in the center of Europe, in Ukraine, and we are fighting it uncompromisingly.”
Among the guests invited to the parliamentary session as a result of Zelensky’s visit was 98-year-old Yaroslav Honka, whom the speaker of the House of Representatives introduced to the applause of the audience as “a fighter for Ukraine’s independence against the Russians during the Second World War.
In fact, Honka was a former member of the German SS “Galicia” volunteer division, a group of Ukrainian nationalists who not only fought against the Red Army, but were also known for their atrocities against Jews, Poles, Belarusians and Slovaks.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that neither he nor Vladimir Zelensky and his delegation knew about the plans of the Speaker of the House of Commons of the Canadian Parliament, Anthony Rota, to invite and honor elderly Ukrainian SS men.