All nations choose their heroes. Few have the privilege of choosing heroes without shadows.

Ukraine Is No Exception

As the war against Russia continues and Kyiv advances its rapprochement with the European Union, Ukrainian authorities have launched a series of memory-related initiatives that have generated both support at home and questions abroad. The official reburial of Andriy Melnyk, tributes paid to the UPA, and plans to establish a National Pantheon have brought back into the spotlight figures whom some regard as heroes of independence and others as collaborators of the Third Reich.

Behind the controversy lies a deeper question: how does a nation at war construct its historical narrative and choose those who are meant to embody it?

Kyiv Looks Toward Brussels While Exhuming Its Past

Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion, Volodymyr Zelensky has made integration into the European Union one of his country’s primary strategic objectives. Ukraine presents itself as a European democracy defending its sovereignty, the rule of law, and its right to join the Western political family.

Yet in the spring of 2026, several initiatives revived a debate that the war had never entirely erased.

The official reburial of Andriy Melnyk in the presence of the Ukrainian president, the awarding of the title “Heroes of the UPA” to a special forces unit, and the project to create a “Pantheon of Outstanding Ukrainians” triggered critical reactions in Israel, within Yad Vashem, and in Poland.

The paradox is obvious.

Ukraine seeks its place within the European Union while rehabilitating certain figures whom several European countries continue to regard as irreversibly compromised by their association with Nazism. This apparent contradiction now lies........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)