Roman Shukhevych, Bataillon 201 (sitting, second from left), 1942.
“Diplomats should work to strengthen friendship and mutual respect between the Ukrainian and Israeli peoples, and not vice versa,” Oleh Nikolenko, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, commented last Thursday on the demand of Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Joel Lion to cancel the decision to name a new stadium in Ternopil in western Ukraine after Roman Shukhevych.
Shukhevych, a.k.a. Taras Chuprynka (1907 â 1950) was a Ukrainian nationalist, who served in the Nachtigall Battalion as a Hauptmann (leader) of the German Schutzmannschaft 201 auxiliary police battalion, as a military leader of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) that fought the Red Army, and one of the organizers of the Halych-Volhynia massacre of between 50,000 and 100,000 Poles.