Head of Canadian Ukrainian group defends man who fought for unit created by Nazis

The president of the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada is defending a Second World War veteran of a Nazi unit who was recently lauded as a hero in Canada's Parliament.

The president of the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada is defending a Second World War veteran of a Nazi unit who was recently lauded as a hero in Canada's Parliament.

Jurij Klufas has not met 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka but says the veteran is being treated unfairly. He says Hunka was fighting for Ukraine — not Germany — and that countries, including Canada, have cleared his division of war crimes.

"If you're a soldier doesn't mean you're a member of a certain party from the country," Klufas said Friday in a phone interview. "In this case, the senior gentleman here was a soldier, in his understanding, fighting for Ukraine."

Hunka received a standing ovation in the House of Commons on Sept. 22 after being introduced by the Speaker as "a Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero'' during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to Ottawa.

The incident drew widespread international criticism after it was revealed Hunka was a member of a mostly volunteer unit created by the Nazis to fight the Soviet Union. The revelation forced the resignation of Anthony Rota as Speaker and an apology on behalf of Parliament by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian-Canadian political science professor at the University of Ottawa, says the actions of Hunka's Waffen-SS Galicia Division have been "whitewashed" in Canada.

He says supporters have tried to present the division as a patriotic Ukrainian force despite the fact it collaborated with Nazis and was involved in a variety of atrocities, including the killings of Jews, Ukrainians and Poles.