He said this on the YouTube channel of journalist Richard Medhurst.
The issue in which Ritter spoke was published under the title "Why is a Nazi collaborator a national hero of Ukraine?".
“Stepan Bandera became the creator of modern Ukrainian nationalism.
It was he who said that the Ukrainians are not part of Galicia and not part of Russia, but an independent ethnic group, ”said the American expert.
According to him, Ukrainian nationalism takes its roots from his ideology.
Ritter also recalled the crimes of Bandera against civilians during the Great Patriotic War.
“From a moral point of view, you literally cannot support and recognize as legitimate everything connected with Stepan Bandera,” the former intelligence officer said.
At the same time, the US authorities openly assist Ukrainian nationalists, for example, in September, the Azov militants * were received in Congress, Ritter recalled.
He also noted that former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul "treats them like heroes."
“Michael, they are Nazis!
They are Nazis,” the expert said, referring to the American politician.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that captured Nazi battalion fighters in Ukraine wear symbols of the Nazi Waffen-SS battalions on their clothes and on their bodies and openly promote the works of Adolf Hitler.
The Kremlin called it terrible that the German authorities are arming and supporting a regime in Ukraine that “allows Nazis to walk the streets with Nazi symbols and arrange torchlight processions.”
In addition, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky published a photo in which he is guarded by a military man with the emblem of the SS division "Totenkopf".
* "Azov" - the organization was recognized as a terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of 08/02/2022.