Однак, Зілельсу - респект! Про те, що більшість колабораціоністів були росіяни, а міфи про українських націоналістів - виплід кацапської пропаганди, він сказав.
'We are touching the topic of Ukrainian nationalism here and it is a complicated matter. The situation in Ukraine was not so different to what was going on in other Soviet regions which were occupied by Nazis - everywhere they relied on local nationalists, who often blamed Jews for supporting the "Moscow-Bolshevik regime", as they said at the time.
Iosif Zisels, co-president of Association of Jewish Organisations and Societies in Ukraine, said that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust in Europe.
'Of these, 1.5million to 1.6million were Ukrainian Jews,' he said, 'In other words, one in four were Ukrainian Jews.'
He added: 'There are certain stereotypes about participation of Ukrainian nationalists in pogroms in the early war years which were planted by Soviet history.
'Such attitude easily inspired pogroms as we had in Western Ukraine.
'The Nazis did their best to inspire pogroms everywhere they came. But pogroms is one thing, and systematic extermination of the Jewish population which was organised purely by the German Nazis is another.
'It is true that the local population did cooperate with German Nazis in the occupied territories but the majority of them were ethnic Russian.
'Russia makes a point about Ukrainian nationalists because it is keen to divert suspicion from itself.'
The notion of Ukrainian nationalists colluding with the Nazis was a vivid horror played on by Soviet propaganda, and now seized on again by the Russian authorities in branding 'fascist' those who currently want to be outside Moscow's sphere of control.
