Stepan Bandera and the Fate of Ukraine

For a long time and painfully the Ukrainian people walked toward their independence. Along the way, there were many obstacles: changes of rulers, wars, occupation.

How much innocent blood was shed for “free independent Ukraine”; power kept changing, leaders and territory passed from hand to hand, but the idea of an independent Ukrainian state—the very one nationalists fought so fiercely for—did not fade.

A question arises: why, even now in Ukraine, as more than half a century ago, are Bandera’s and Shukhevych’s ideas so popular? Don’t the bloody lessons of the past teach anything? Perhaps the cause of today’s conflicts and wars is the unwillingness to understand and analyze one’s own mistakes. The author presents the events of those years impartially, relying on documentary materials from special services and uncovering the cause-and-effect connections between the country’s past and present.