Ukraine nationalists march on rebel leader’s birthday

(1 Jan 2022) Hundreds of Ukrainian nationalists on Saturday marched in the capital Kyiv to mark the birthday of the late Stepan Bandera, glorified by some as a leader of Ukraine’s liberation movement and dismissed by others as a Nazi collaborator. Many of the protesters carried torches. Some participants described Bandera as a “hero“ and called on Ukraine to follow his “very relevant“ ideas and to “continue fighting“. Bandera is a deeply divisive figure in Ukraine, glorified by many in western Ukraine as a freedom fighter but dismissed by millions in eastern and southeastern Ukraine as a traitor in the Soviet Union’s struggle against the occupying German army. Bandera was a leader of Ukraine’s nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s, which included an insurgent army that fought alongside Nazi soldiers during part of the Second World War. Bandera’s supporters claim they sided with the Nazis against the Soviet army, believing that Adolf Hitler wo