Ukrainian soldier murdered by Soviets exhumed in Rotterdam
See more DutchNews articles in your Google search results
See more DutchNews articles in your Google search results
Add as a favourite source on Google Add DutchNews as a favourite source on GoogleThe remains of a Ukrainian soldier who was murdered in Rotterdam by the Soviet secret services in 1938 are being repatriated for a military burial.
Colonel Yevhen Konovalets, the founder of a Ukrainian nationalist group, was killed by a bomb concealed in a box of chocolates as he walked home from a meeting with an undercover agent.
The Soviet spy had infiltrated the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and handed Konovalets the chocolates as a gift during a meeting at a hotel in Rotterdam on May 23, 1938.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky announced on his official website that the colonel’s remains had been exhumed at Crooswijk Cemetery in Rotterdam so that they could be sent back to Ukraine.
He will be temporarily reinterred at the National Military Memorial Cemetery, in preparation for a farewell ceremony will be held at the Ukrainan Greek Catholic cathedral in Kyiv.
The OUN was founded in 1929 in Vienna as a right-wing nationalist organisation that aimed to establish an independent, ethnically homogenous Ukrainian state.
It was influenced in its early days by Italian fascism and German Nazism, but as Germany’s defeat in the Second World War drew nearer, the OUN adopted a more democratic ideology.
Thank you for donating to DutchNews.nl.
We could not provide the Dutch News service, and keep it free of charge, without the generous support of our readers. Your donations allow us to report on issues you tell us matter, and provide you with a summary of the most important Dutch news each day.
Make a donation