Was the Ukrainian prime minister’s father a Nazi collaborator in Belarus?
The scandalous statement, alleging that the father to Ukraine’s prime minister Victor Yanukovich, served as a Polizei in the Germany-occupied Belarus, was circulated by numerous Ukrainian media. The allegation was backed with a document pulled from the Soviet Interior Ministry files.
On April 11, 1945, Deputy Chief of KGB Department in the Baranvichy region Lt Col A. Zaytsev sent a classified letter to the then chief of Interior Department in the Stalin region (Ukraine), writing as follows:
“In connection with the investigation by the KGB Department in the Baranavichy region of the case about the desertion and collaboration with the Nazi occupants, I propose that you deport to the possession of the Department of the Camps and Corrections of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic the following citizens who are residents of the Stalin region of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic…” The list includes five people, including “Yanukovich Fyodor Vladimirovich, born in 1923 in the village of Yanuki, Vitsebsk region”.
Aliaksandr Tataranka, the Belarusian historian who researches the repressive policies of the Soviet punitive services on the territory of the former Baranavichy region and the author of The Banned Memory book, confirmed to the European Radio for Belarus that Lt Col Zaytsev who signed the classified letter was a real person.
“In 1951-54, he headed the KGB Department in Baranavichy. Previously, he had served as the deputy head of the same department. It means Zaytsev was a real person”.
ERB decided to look for some information about Victor Yanukovich’s father in his home village. Ivan Azevich, an official with the local county’s ideology department, says Yanukovich’s grandfather left Yanuki before 1917.
“Yanukovich visited twice the graves of his relatives. His grandfather’s brother is buried here. The elders showed him the grave. They said that the Yanukovichs left to work in the mines in the Donetsk region of Ukraine”.
If this is so, the father to the Ukrainian prime minister should not be under suspicion. We telephoned the village of Yanuki in order to confirm the time of his departure. The seventy-year-old Akviliniya Yanukovich who is the oldest person in the village of four houses could not be of much help.
“We don’t remember. Our parents are younger than his grandfather. People said that his grandfather left when he was still young. His brother was married to a woman in Ukraine. So he went to his brother. The brother later returned with his family here, but this one remained there. Those elders who knew them have already died”.
Akviliniya Yanukovich does not remember Fyodar Yanukovich. So it remains a mystery whether this “Nazi collaborator” was the father to Victor Yanukovich or this is just a coincidence in the names. However, the prime minister’s official biography writes: “Victor Yanukovich was born on July 2, 1953 in the Donets region (the former Stalin region). His father Fyodor Vladimirovich, born 1923, then worked as a train driver”.
Theoretically, the allegations could be true…
