War Criminality Educational Documents
An Open Letter to Justice Minister Arif Virani, January 15, 2025
Dear Minister of Justice Virani:
On 24 October 2024, the Honourable Chris Alexander, a Distinguished Fellow of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, testified before the Standing Committee for Public Safety and National Security of the House of Commons. In discussing foreign interference in Canadian society, Mr. Alexander tabled documents suggesting that Mr. David Pugliese, a journalist working for the Ottawa Citizen, had been an agent of influence for the Soviet Union, recruited for that purpose by the Soviet secret police,
https://www.ourcommons.ca/documentviewer/en/44-1/SECU/meeting-125/evidence
Mr. Pugliese denied the allegations before the SECU committee on 7 November 2024
https://www.ourcommons.ca/documentviewer/en/44-1/SECU/meeting-125/evidence
and in various media stories
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/postmedia-reporter-says-kgb-allegations-are-ridiculous-and-entirely-false
Meanwhile, Mr. Dwayne Strocen, president of Docufraud Canada, and a veteran of the RCMP, has said that in his professional opinion, these KGB documents are real.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10831226/reporter-david-pugliese-false-russian-spy-allegations/
We call upon the Government of Canada to immediately set up an official inquiry to determine whether these accusations are credible and to take any measures required based on this investigation’s findings.
The difficult history behind the Nazi soldier in Parliament, Full Comment, National Post, October 23, 2023
Historical ignorance is the generous explanation for the House of Commons applauding a veteran of the Nazis' Waffen SS Galicia division during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenzkyy. But the embarrassment and outrage that followed shed little light on exactly how Ukrainians like Yaroslav Hunka found themselves first wearing the infamous Nazi SS uniform, then immigrating to live peaceful postwar lives in Canada. Myroslav Shkandrij, author of a new book, In the Maelstrom: The Waffen-SS 'Galicia' Division and Its Legacy, joins Brian this week to discuss the unsettled history of the controversial unit, and why the story doesn't lend itself to easy narratives. (Recorded October 12, 2023)
Contentious Ukrainian Second World War Unit Examined. The Free Press, June 24, 2023
Dear Editor:
re: "Contentious Ukrainian Second World War Unit Examined" The Free Press, June 24, 2023
We now know that the controversy over alleged “Nazi war criminals” in Canada was provoked by the KGB, a disinformation campaign carried forward by the Russian Federation’s operatives after the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse. As Professor Myroslav Shkandrij’s book has also reminded us, the Commission of Inquiry on Nazi War Criminals, headed by the late Mr Justice Jules Deschênes, concluded that this military formation could not be indicted as a unit and that the brouhaha about the “Nazis in our midst” had been “grossly exaggerated." As such, the headline for this review is not only misleading but unwarranted. The Ukrainians who served in the “Galician Division” were neither Nazis nor war criminals.
Yours truly,
Lubomyr Luciuk, PhD
Professor
Royal Military College of Canada
Kingston, Ontario, K7K 7B4
The SBU denied Yad Vashem about Shukhevych, BBC Ukrainian.com March 4, 2008
A delegation of Ukrainian experts says that during a visit to the museum archives in Israel they did not find any documents that would confirm the accusations of involvement of the Nakhtigal battalion or one of the OUN-UPA leaders Roman Shukhevych in punitive operations in Lviv in 1941.
Canada plans to deport my father without a fair trial, Olya Odynsky, The Globe and Mail, January 5, 1998
"Commission of Inquiry on War Crimes" by Honourable Justice Jules Deschenes, Commissioner, December 30, 1986
Historical publication digitized in 2012 by Privy Council Office of Canada. "In view of the nature of this inquiry, my Report is divided into two Parts: Part I, which is designed for publication; Part II, which is destined to remain confidential."--Letter of Transmittal, p.3 of 955. Includes: "Findings and recommendations" (Part II, Chapter I) 13p. Ottawa - Ontario : Privy Council Office 30 December 1986.