Kiev – Prosecutors in Ukraine initiated a murder investigation against a Jewish former Soviet officer who is suspected of killing a nationalist in 1952.
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Boris Steckler, 94, is accused of throwing a grenade into a bunker where the victim and several other anti-Soviet underground fighters were hiding. His accusers claim he was working for the feared NKVD security service, which later became the KGB.
The General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine opened the probe against Steckler on April 18, the Ist Pravda news website reported last week based on documents it obtained from the National Advocacy Center, a nationalist and anti-Russian not-for-profit group.
Steckler is accused of killing Neil Hasevych, an artist who was a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, or OUN, which fought during the first half of the 20th century against Soviet domination. Leaders of OUN briefly collaborated with Nazi occupation forces before turning against them.
Nationalist groups in Ukraine have for years tried to prosecute Steckler. Last year, the Rivne District Administrative Court began reviewing a lawsuit connected to Steckler that nationalists brought against Ukraine’s SBU security service. The petitioners wanted the SBU to release old classified files about Steckler.
He declined to show up at the hearing in Rivne and appealed to the court to dismiss the plaintiffs’ petition. Steckler has declined to comment on the allegations made against him, the news website said.
Following a bloody revolution in 2014 that unleashed a wave of nationalist sentiment in Ukraine, the state has celebrated the legacy of various personalities from OUN and its military wing, the UPA, including commanders who are accused of responsibility for the murder of thousands of Jews and Poles
One such leader was Stepan Bandera, who has a large statue of him in the city of Lviv and streets named after him in several cities, including Kiev. Another is Roman Shukhevych, whom the director of the state-operated Ukrainian National Memory Institute recently praised as “one of five eminent personalities who have changed the course of history.”
Advocates of nationalist leaders like Bandera and Shukhevych claim their vision of Ukraine extended to Jews, some of whom served in UPA’s ranks. Some UPA militants also rescued Jews from the Holocaust.
and yet misguided people will go to Uman and give money to these old and neo-Nazi Ukrainians. Remember the Ukrainians did the work that the SS considered too gruesome like tearing apart Jewish babies WHILE ALIVE, the Ukrainians speciality was killing Jews en masse NOT using industrial means like using axes, knives and swords. Ask any Holocaust survivor who they feared more Germans or Ukrainians.
Ukraine should receive a nuclear device as an attack for brutal, heinous and savage crimes it have committed against . Ymach shmoi v’zchron
#1 & #2 . Three article is about a Jew accused of murder.
You triggered without reading the article.
Boris Steckler, 94, is accused of throwing a grenade into a bunker where the victim and several other anti-Soviet underground fighters were hiding.
And? That was his job. He was a Soviet soldier.
His accusers claim he was working for the feared NKVD security service, which later became the KGB.
And if he was? Many soldiers were also directed by the NKVD, that’s how the Soviet army was run.
Rather more simply stated: He is a Jew. He is a decorated soldier. He was in the Soviet military. Enough reason to hate him. The fact that he despatched a few Ukranian collaborators seals his fate.
At 94 (biz 120) I doubt if he cares too much. But I would suggest he leave the country if possible. Why does he need that hassle at that age?