MOSCOW. March 3 (Interfax) - Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky has warned the Western democracies that Bandera-type nationalists may come to power in Ukraine.
"What we can see happening in Ukraine today - the rise of Bandera's black-and-red flag, as well as that Bandera is their hero and ideologist - must carry a message to us about what the future of Ukraine and Europe can be like. Politicians remain in the vanguard in Ukraine so far, but real militants will arrive after them," Medinsky said on Rossiya 24 television.
"When Hitler was coming to power, Europe was lenient hoping to obtain an instrument targeted against the Soviet Union," Medinsky, a historian, said.
"We know too well what the end result was. Now we can see the European democracies and the Alliance conniving at the Nazis in passive and silent approval of their coming to power. As a historian I have the feeling of deja vu as I think back to the Munich of the 1930s. History is repeating itself," he said.
"It is Russia's historical mission not to allow the global nightmare of the 1930s to repeat itself due to democracies' inactivity," he said.
The West is silent today "for the same reason Chamberlain, Daladier and America remained silent when Hitler came to power. They hoped Hitler would be their instrument in a ram attack against Russia," he said.