Back
Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
At the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv, a farewell ceremony took place for Colonel of the Ukrainian People's Army, commander of the Sich Riflemen, and the first head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Yevhen Konovalets. Soldiers, youth, clergy, and the public from all over Ukraine attended to bid him farewell, reports Espreso correspondent Kateryna Halko.
Konovalets's ashes, killed by a Soviet agent in Rotterdam in 1938 year, were returned to Ukraine in 13 in August — for several days now, soldiers, youth, clergy, and the public have been coming to the tomb in the cathedral to pay tribute to the colonel.
Andriy Yusov, spokesman for the State Security Service of Ukraine (GUR), called the event significant for nation-building and the education of future generations. He said that the scale of Konovalets—the founder of the Ukrainian Military Organization, and later the OUN after the defeat of the liberation struggle—was such that even the Russian Empire felt a threat in him, and Stalin personally ordered his assassination.
Oleksandr Alfiorov, head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, reminded that 88 years ago Konovalets's comrades who stood by his coffin in Rotterdam swore to return the colonel's body to an independent, united Ukraine.
"Today we return him to an independent Ukraine—the Ukraine for which he fought and for which he died," Alfiorov said.
People's Deputy Roman Lozynskyi emphasized that returning our people—from captivity, from the battlefield, from forced burials in emigration—is the state's direct responsibility.
"What Ukraine is doing now, returning its own people, returning its own—this is the best example that we are moving toward victory not only for territory but also for our truth, identity, and our heroes," he stressed.
Kyryl Budanov, head of the Office of the President, commenting on the importance of reburial of Konovalets specifically in Kyiv, noted that without returning and giving meaning to the figures who shaped Ukrainian history, "nothing will happen."
Asked whether we should expect the return of other prominent figures, he answered simply: "Everyone will return."
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Всі повернуться: Буданов про значення перепоховання засновника ОУН". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Bagnet.
