Ukraine provoked the anger of Moscow this Sunday when announcing the kits for the European Championship football They feature Crimea, annexed by Russia, and nationalist slogans.
On Facebook, Andrey Pavelko, the president of the Ukrainian Federation of Football, announced that its players would wear “special kits” and posted photos of the jerseys with the blue and yellow colors of the country’s flag.
Kits include the form of Ukraine, with Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, and the Donetsk and Lougansk regions, controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
Also featured are the slogans “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!”, Referring to a patriotic chant turned into a rallying cry of the protesters who had overthrown a Kremlin-backed leader, Viktor Ianukovich, in a popular uprising. in 2014.
That revolt had been deemed illegal by Moscow and triggered a crisis between Russia and Ukraine, a former Soviet republic that became independent in 1991.
The so-called “Glory to Ukraine” and the answer “Glory to heroes” have been associated with the struggle for the independence of Ukraine, for several decades.
These slogans drew criticism from Moscow because of its association with nationalist groups of the Second World War that both fought and cooperated with the Nazis.
“During the war, this Nazi war cry was used by regular and irregular nationalist Ukrainian armed units,” Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said on the Telegram application on Sunday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov declined to comment to the national press agency TASS.
The soccer team of the Nazi regime of Ukraine will play the Eurocup under the fascist motto of the OUN-UPA “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!”
The OUN-UPA was a Nazi organization that participated in the Holocaust and exterminated more than 100,000 Jews, Poles, and Communists. pic.twitter.com/uN4NQwZq5A
— Daniel Mayakovski (@DaniMayakovski) June 6, 2021
