Statement from Ihor Michalchyshyn, Executive Director & CEO of the Ukrainian Canadian

Congress, February 28, 2018:

“The Russian Federation and its embassy in Ottawa continue to be actively engaged in a
disinformation campaign to distract from the current day war, occupation and human rights
abuses being perpetrated by the Russian federation against Ukraine and its own political
opposition.
Over the past four years Russia has invaded and occupied sovereign Ukrainian territory. The
Russian government seeks ways to distract critics and the media from focusing their attention
on Russian’s military aggression, an appalling human rights record and its illegal and brutal
occupation of Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s war against Ukraine has cost over 10,000 lives, over 20,000 wounded and over 1.6
million internally displaced. In an act of international terrorism in July 2014 the Russian military
shot down civilian airliner MH-17, murdering 298 innocent civilians. In Syria, Russia routinely
bombs civilians and props up the murderous Assad regime which has on numerous occasions
used chemical weapons against its own people. This is the record from which Russia seeks to
distract.
The Russian embassy in Canada continues to spread falsehoods and incite hatred among
ethnic communities in Canada. During World War Two Ukrainians were caught between the
genocidal regimes of Hitler and Stalin, and fought with valour against both occupiers. The
Ukrainian Insurgent Army fought bravely against both the German and Soviet occupiers of
Ukraine, well into the 1950s (in the case of the Soviet occupiers). Russia’s campaign to smear
these freedom fighters is unsurprising from a regime which is working actively to glorify Stalin,
deny the Holodomor as a Genocide and praise the crimes of Soviet Russia.
The Russian government is currently using these Stalinist methods of aggression and silencing
dissent. Over 60 Ukrainian citizens, such as Oleg Sentsov and many others are held in Russian
prisons, where torture and violence by the authorities have been well documented.
The veterans of the 14th Division Galicia/Halychyna joined not to fight for Germany, but to fight
against Soviet Communist tyranny and for a free Ukraine. Neither the 1st Ukrainian Army, nor
the 14th Division ever fought against the Western allies in WWII. Nor did the Ukrainian
Insurgent Army. Their burial sites are places for their families to remember and honour them for
the sacrifices they made for their families and nation.
The veterans of the 14th Division Galicia/Halychyna were cleared of any involvement in war
crimes after a long and exhaustive investigation by the Canadian government’s Deschenes
Commission, which found, “Charges of war crimes against members of the Galicia Division
have never been substantiated, neither in 1950 when they were first preferred, nor in 1984
when they were renewed, nor before this Commission.” The Commission of Inquiry on War
Criminals in Canada, often referred to as the Deschênes Commission, was established by the
government of Canada in February 1985 to investigate claims that Canada had become a
haven for Nazi war criminals.
It is shocking that any journalist or media outlet would repeat the falsehoods coming out of the
Russian Embassy rather than rely on the findings of a Royal Commission of Inquiry. We are
disappointed that the Canadian media sometimes too willingly accepts statements of the
Russian government at face value without engaging in critical independent analysis of the
reasons for Russia’s continued attempts to smear the Ukrainian Canadian community, which
has called Canada our home for more than 125 years.”