Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered his “most sincere apologies” to Parliament on Wednesday for the tribute paid, during the Ukrainian president’s visit to Canada, to a Ukrainian veteran who fought with the Nazis in World War II.
“I would like to offer my most sincere apologies for what happened on Friday and for the situation in which the President finds himself. [ucraniano, Volodymyr] Zelensky and the Ukrainian delegation were placed,” Trudeau declared in the Canadian Parliament, reacting to the scandal unleashed by the episode.
On Friday, deputies from all parties, Trudeau himself, his Government and Volodymyr Zelensky, of Jewish religion, stood up to applaud Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian veteran accused of having fought alongside the SS, ignorant of the details of the attack. your past.
“It was a terrible mistake and a violation of the memory of those who suffered cruelly at the hands of the Nazi regime,” said the Canadian Prime Minister.
This statement comes one day after the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada, Anthony Rota, responsible for the error that caused Yaroslav Hunka to be applauded in the Canadian Parliament.
According to the association that defends the Jewish community in Canada, the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC), Hunka served in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, a Nazi military unit whose crimes against humanity during the Holocaust are well documented. .
It was the Ukrainian president’s first official visit to Canada since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Source: TSF
