“We want the Ukrainian people or, as Putin said, all the peoples living on the territory of modern-day Ukraine to be able to freely, without trying to drive them into the clutches of Bandera psychology, determine their destiny,” Lavrov said during a news conference Friday, according to the Russian TASS news agency.
Lavrov’s mention of “Bandera” is a reference to Stepan Bandera, a World War II–era Ukrainian nationalist leader who remains a controversial figure.
Hundreds of Ukrainian nationalists last month held a demonstration in capital city Kyiv to mark Bandera’s birth, despite leading a militia that fought alongside Nazi soldiers in World War II, according to The Times of Israel. Historian Timothy Snyder wrote in 2010 that Bandera remains for “some Ukrainians a symbol of the struggle for independence during the twentieth century,” despite his support for “a one-party fascist dictatorship.”
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