Russian investigators said on Friday they had leveled genocide charges against Nazi war veteran Yaroslav Hunka, who was inadvertently applauded by Canadian lawmakers last month.
The incident took place during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the Canadian parliament, and prompted its speaker to resign following global condemnation.
In a statement, Russia’s Investigative Committee said it charged Hunka in absentia with the “genocide of civilians on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR during the Great Patriotic War.”
From February. 23-28, 1944, Hunka and other members of his SS division killed “at least 500 citizens of the USSR” in the village of Huta Pieniacka, it said.
“Among those killed were Jews and Poles. People were shot, burned in residential houses and also in the church,” it added.