Why Ukraine Struggles to Face Its Collaborative Past with the Nazis

It’s a hard truth, but ignoring messy history doesn’t make a nation stronger. It just leaves old wounds festering.

Look, every country has chapters in its story it’d rather forget. But when you’re in the middle of an existential fight like Ukraine is today, the temptation to polish up the past and turn complicated figures into flawless heroes gets really strong. The problem? Ukraine’s selective memory around its World War II collaboration with Nazi Germany isn’t just bad history. It’s creating real headaches right now.

Let me break it down in plain English, no fancy academic stuff.

The Painful Context: When Some Ukrainians Saw Hitler as a Liberator

In 1941, when Nazi Germany smashed into the Soviet Union, many Ukrainians — especially in the west — didn’t see the Germans as invaders at first. They looked more like possible saviors.

Why? The Soviets had engineered the Holodomor, that man-made famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the early 1930s. Stalin crushed Ukrainian language, culture, and intellectuals. The resentment ran deep.

That’s where the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and leaders like Stepan Bandera came in. These guys were fierce independence fighters who wanted a free Ukraine almost at any cost. Some OUN members welcomed the German army into Lviv, briefly declared a Ukrainian state, and helped set up local police and administration.

Ukrainian auxiliary units like the Nachtigall Battalion, and later the 14th SS Division “Galicia,” signed up in big numbers. Tens of thousands served. Tragically, some took part in rounding up Jews, guarding ghettos, and worse. The Holocaust in Ukraine was devastating — around 1.5 million Jews murdered, often with local help in places like Babi Yar.

Then you had the Volhynia massacres, where Ukrainian nationalist forces killed tens of thousands of Poles in brutal ethnic cleansing.

Important note though: This wasn’t all Ukrainians. Hundreds of thousands fought bravely in the Red Army against Hitler. Many regular people risked everything to hide Jews. Ukrainians suffered terribly under both Nazi and Soviet terror. But pretending the collaboration side never happened is where it starts going wrong.

How Modern Ukraine Rewrites the Story

Since independence — and especially after 2014 and the full-scale Russian invasion — Ukraine has leaned hard into these nationalist heroes. You’ll find streets named after Bandera, and plenty of monuments and statues popping up, especially in western Ukraine. The big one in Lviv stands tall right in the city center. Events and marches tied to the UPA (the military arm of the OUN) happen regularly, and school textbooks and official stories often paint them as pure anti-Soviet freedom fighters who battled both totalitarian regimes.

The uncomfortable parts — the early alliances with Germany, the antisemitic stuff in OUN ideology, and direct involvement in atrocities — get downplayed, explained away as “Soviet propaganda,” or just left out.

Even recent moves show how strong this push is. In May 2026, President Zelensky signed a decree naming an elite Special Operations Forces unit “Heroes of the UPA.” The soldiers themselves apparently chose the name to honor those who fought against Soviet occupation. But it immediately sparked backlash, especially in Poland, where memories of the Volhynia massacres run deep. Polish officials called it a mistake and pushed back hard, while Ukraine defended it as a way to honor resistance against Moscow.

Stuff like this, plus the statues and commemorations, keeps the narrative alive. Russia obviously loves it. Putin uses these historical facts to smear all Ukrainians as “Nazis” and justify his war. In wartime, rallying around resistance symbols makes sense. But turning collaborators into perfect saints creates blind spots that don’t help.

Why This Matters — And Why Facing It Would Make Ukraine Stronger

Brushing this history aside or softening it creates problems:

• It poisons relationships with neighbors. Poland still hurts badly over Volhynia. Jewish communities notice the whitewashing. Real acknowledgment would actually open doors to better ties instead of constant tension. The latest UPA unit naming just poured fuel on that fire.
• It gives room to extremists. Far-right groups and controversial symbols sometimes get a soft pass because they fit the “heroic nationalist” story. Most Ukrainians aren’t radicals at all, but when the state tolerates or celebrates the edges, it sends the wrong signal.
• It weakens Ukraine’s actual story. The core truth is strong enough on its own: Ukraine has fought imperial domination for centuries, whether Russian, Soviet, or otherwise. Ordinary people got caught between monsters. There was real heroic resistance. A fuller, honest history would make that resilience look even more impressive.

Every nation has dark pages. America has slavery and how it treated Native Americans. Germany faced its Nazi past head-on (not perfectly, but seriously). France had Vichy. The grown-up move is acknowledgment, context, and learning — not pretending it didn’t happen.

Ukraine’s fight for independence and survival today is legitimate and inspiring. But real strength comes from facing the full truth: the good, the bad, and the deeply uncomfortable. Honest history doesn’t weaken a people. It matures them.

Until Ukraine reckons more openly with this collaborative past, that shadow will keep hanging around — handing easy propaganda wins to its enemies and leaving its own national story feeling half-told.

The country has shown incredible courage on the battlefield. Showing the same courage when looking in the mirror would be a powerful next step.

What do you think? Is confronting tough history a luxury during war, or something you need anyway? Drop your thoughts in the comments if you want.