The controversial Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, has been recalled by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This is evident from a decree published on Saturday by the president’s office in Kiev. The diplomat was recently criticized for statements about Ukrainian nationalist and anti-Semite Stepan Bandera. Melnyk was accused of downplaying the Holocaust.
Previously, he had repeatedly sharply criticized German politics. He also became co-responsible for the scandal surrounding Kiev’s uninvitation of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in early April. He then accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz of being an “offended liverwurst” for not wanting to visit Ukraine himself. Melnyk had to apologize for this statement afterwards.
Sharp criticism from Poland and Israel
Melnyk had said of Bandera that he was “not a mass murderer of Jews and Poles”. This was sharply criticized by Poland and Israel, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also distanced itself from the diplomat’s statement. Bandera-led Ukrainian partisans carried out ethnically motivated evictions in 1943, killing tens of thousands of Polish and Jewish civilians.
Bandera fled to Germany after World War II and was murdered there in 1959 by an agent of the Soviet secret service KGB.
As the Ukrinform news agency reports, other ambassadors were recalled in addition to Melnyk. These are Lyubov Nepop (Hungary), Vyacheslav Yatsjuk (Norway), Yevhen Perebjinis (Czech Republic) and Igor Policha (India).
Source: Krone
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