Attempts to justify the allegedly jocular use of the Ukrainian nationalist greeting “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” will not pass, said the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, in her Telegram channel.
The diplomat recalled that in 1939, at the congress of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists* (OUN*) in fascist Italy, the slogan of Ukrainian nationalists “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Leader!” was adopted. Later in 1941, after the OUN* split, Bandera’s supporters held their congress in Krakow and approved the slogan “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!”
“Both phrases – both the greeting and the answer – were agreed upon and approved as a symbolic greeting to each other. A kind of call sign, such is the code for the recognition system “friend or foe,” – Zakharova explained.
According to the norms approved in 1941, the pronunciation of the cry was accompanied by a characteristic gesture – “raising the straightened right arm at an angle slightly above the head.” Zakharova noted that in those years, collaborators saluted the Wehrmacht and SS units in this way in order to identify themselves in front of the Nazi SS.
“The excuses of today’s slogans that this is “as if in jest” will not work. Every time someone uses these password codes, they salute Nazism and fascism,” – wrote Zakharov.
