In December 2024, news spread on the Internet that children’s comics about the last years of the life of Ukrainian politician Stepan Bandera appeared in bookstores in Lviv. We checked if this is true.
Since the beginning of December, Russian media and Telegram channels began writing that a book with children's comics about the leader of the anti-communist resistance in Western Ukraine of the 20th century, Stepan Bandera, could allegedly appear in Ukraine. On December 11, the speaker of the Russian Foreign Ministry spoke about this at a briefing. Maria Zakharova. A week later, a number of Russian Telegram channels announcedthat the book went on sale, and posted a video from a bookstore in Lviv. In just a few days, the news collected almost one and a half million views on Telegram (according to the TGStat service), and among the accounts that published it were such popular channels as “Operation Z: Military Correspondents of the Russian Spring"(495,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Solovyov"(196,000), "Uncle Slava"(182,000), "Voblya"(132,000), etc.
IN articles about the comic strip about Bandera, Russian media quoted a statement by Verkhovna Rada deputy and ex-head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory Vladimir Vyatrovich. IN interview The parliamentarian allegedly explained to the Ukrainian TV channel NTA the purpose of creating the comic: “So that people would not just have a positive assessment of Bandera, because he is the hero of the cool song “Our Father Bandera,” but so that people would understand why he became the hero of this song.”
In the context of Russian propaganda, the figure of Stepan Bandera associated exclusively with Nazism and war crimes. For example, the editor of the Russian edition of RT Margarita Simonyan statedthat a significant part of the Ukrainian people are “Banderaites,” that is, followers of Nazism. That is why in the Russian media environment the news about the release of comics about the leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement was interpreted as an act of glorification of the criminal. However, many Ukrainians think Bandera is a national hero and symbol of the struggle for the independence of Ukraine. According to the results of street polls in December 2024, the idea of creating a children's comic about Bandera found a positive response among citizens.
December 19 edition "Arguments and facts” published an article with the headline “Minors are being molested. Children's comics about Bandera began to be sold in Lvov,” which reported that the book had already arrived in bookstores in the city. Most of these articles indicated the Telegram channel as the primary source “Lviv 24/7 News“- allegedly this is where the video of a buyer leafing through a book in a store appeared. Suspicions about the authenticity of these shots were raised by the fact that all publications used the same 40-second video of a girl holding a camera leafing through a book on a store counter. In addition, Russian propaganda periodically uses Bandera’s controversial reputation to promote the narrative of neo-Nazi beliefs allegedly prevalent in Ukrainian society.
In the video you can see a watermark with the logo of the Ukrainian YouTube channel "Speak Great Lviv" “Verified” we couldn’t find a video about the comic there, but we found it in the project’s Telegram account publication, taken on December 18 at 16:49 Moscow time. In the post, the same video is commented in Ukrainian: “About Bandera in comics! Subscribers share finds in Lviv bookstores.” In 20 minutes "Lviv 24/7 News” shared the same video, and already the majority of Russian media and Internet users referred to this channel.
On the cover of the book, in the lower right corner, you can see the logo with the inscription “Vivat” - the symbol of the Ukrainian publishing house, which specializes in publishing books in the genre of non-fiction, children's and teenage literature. On the official Vivat website the book is indeed for sale in paper and electronic formats. It can also be purchased in other online stores (for example, Cosmic Shop And "Sens"). In addition, “Verified” was able to find other photo And video of the same book, posted by users on social networks.
Thus, a children's comic about Stepan Bandera was actually published in Ukraine in December 2024. According to Ukrainian Rada deputy Vladimir Vyatrovich, this book should help children better understand why Bandera became a hero for many Ukrainians.
Cover photo: Instagram
Read on topic:
- MythDetector. What do we know about Stepan Bandera and how his name is used in Kremlin propaganda.
- BBC News. Four myths about Stepan Bandera
- Meduza. From Bandera to “Azov”: we answer the main questions about Ukrainian nationalism
- Is it true that Ukrainian nationalists were convicted at the Nuremberg trials?
- Did Goebbels say that the Third Reich needed Bandera’s followers in order to destroy the rebellious Slavs, after which they themselves must be destroyed?
If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please let us know by highlighting the error text and clicking Ctrl+Enter.
