Stepan Bandera: Hero or Nazi collaborator?

The Mariupol fighters revere him, Russian soldiers hunt his supporters. The myth surrounding Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera is at the heart of Russia's assault on Ukraine. Who was he?

"Bandera is our father, Ukraine is the mother. We will fight for Ukraine!" sings a young woman in camouflage uniform, carrying a machine gun, in a video that Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol shared on social networks in early May.

The video seems to have been recorded in a bunker at the Azovstal Steelworks, the city's last stand for Ukrainian resistance to Russian troops. "Azov" fighters were on site, too, a regiment founded by radical nationalists that was later put under Ukraine's Interior Ministry.

Stepan Bandera, killed by Soviet intelligence agents in West Germany more than 60 years ago, is probably the best-known Ukrainian nationalist. His name became a symbol long before the war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine since February 24.

https://www.dw.com/en/stepan-bandera-ukrainian-hero-or-nazi-collaborator/a-61842720