Ottawa is well aware of Yaroslav Hunka’s “dark past” but still refuses to hand him over, Russia’s ambassador has said
Moscow will continue its efforts to make sure Canada hands over 99-year-old SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka to Russia so that he may answer for his crimes, the Russian ambassador in Ottawa Oleg Stepanov has said.
Hunka, who publicly admitted volunteering to join the Waffen-SS Galicia Division during the Second World War, made headlines last September after he was honored with a standing ovation as a guest in the Parliament of Canada during a visit there by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. Hunka’s unit took part in brutal anti-guerrilla operations across Poland and Soviet Ukraine in 1993-1944, its members accused of massacres and other atrocities against Polish, Jewish and Russian civilians.
In late 2023, Russia asked Canada to extradite the then 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian on accusations of genocide over his suspected involvement in the murder of at least 500 Soviet citizens, but Ottawa rejected the request, citing a lack of a relevant treaty between the two countries.
On Thursday, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office announced that it was able to put Hunka’s name on the database of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). The search for the Nazi veteran continues, the agency said, adding that it would demand his extradition if his whereabouts are established on the territory of other foreign states.
The government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is being “disingenuous” when it says that Hunka is “clean,” Ambassador Stepanov told RIA-Novosti on Saturday.
The practice in the country is that anyone who claims to have fled Communism and who hasn’t committed any crimes on Canadian territory, is considered a good citizen, the envoy explained. “They turn a blind eye to what they did before they arrived here, as if it never happened,” he added.
“But the truth cannot be hidden… The authorities [in Ottawa] are well aware of [Hunka’s] dark past, and of the shameful biographies of thousands more of [Adolf] Hitler’s collaborators who found refuge in Canada after 1945,” Stepanov stressed.
