The remains of Yevhen Konovalets were returned to Ukraine: the colonel was met with military honors at the border

The remains of the founder and first chairman of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Colonel Yevhen Konovalets, were returned from the Netherlands to Ukraine. They were met with state and military honors at the Ukrainian border.

This was reported by Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Iryna Vereshchuk.

“In his native land, Colonel Yevhen Konovalets was met with all state and military honors,” she noted.

The next stage will be a farewell ceremony for Konovalets, which is to be held in the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ of the UGCC.

The remains will be transferred for scientific research

Previously, Iryna Vereshchuk reported that after returning to Ukraine, the remains of Yevhen Konovalets are planned to be transferred for a comprehensive modern scientific study.

The goal is to record and preserve historical evidence as accurately as possible for future generations.

On August 11, the remains of the colonel were exhumed at the Crosswijk cemetery in Rotterdam. It was there that Konovalets was buried after his death in 1938.

The return of his remains is part of a broader state process to rebury prominent figures in Ukraine whose graves remained abroad for decades.

A National Pantheon is being prepared in Ukraine

The issue of returning the remains of prominent Ukrainians has become more active against the backdrop of the creation of the Ukrainian National Pantheon, a future national place of remembrance where the most prominent representatives of the Ukrainian nation are planned to be honored.

In the spring, a separate meeting was held in the Office of the President on the reburial of Ukrainian state, political, and military figures buried outside the country.

State authorities were tasked with forming a list of persons whose remains could be returned, developing a legal and diplomatic mechanism for such return, and determining the locations of future burials.

A special role in this process is assigned to the National War Memorial Cemetery.

On April 30, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law that, in particular, creates legal grounds for the reburial of fighters for Ukraine’s independence in the 20th century on the territory of the memorial cemetery.

The remains of Andriy Melnyk have already been returned to Ukraine

One of the first practical steps was the return to Ukraine of the remains of the figure of the Ukrainian nationalist movement Andriy Melnyk and his wife Sofia Fedak-Melnyk.

On May 25, they were reburied at the National War Memorial Cemetery near Kyiv.

It is assumed that in the future the remains of Andriy Melnyk may be transferred to the Ukrainian National Pantheon.

Who else do they want to return to Ukraine

The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance previously reported that the state is negotiating the return of the remains of other prominent historical figures.

Among them were the head of the UNR Directory and the Chief Ataman of the UNR troops, Symon Petliura, as well as the Hetman of the Ukrainian State, Pavlo Skoropadsky.

The return of Yevhen Konovalets became one of the most symbolic stages of this process.

Who is Yevhen Konovalets

Yevhen Konovalets is a Ukrainian military and political figure, colonel of the UNR Army, commander of the Sich Riflemen, one of the key figures of the Ukrainian liberation movement of the first half of the 20th century.

In 1929, he became one of the founders and first chairman of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

On May 23, 1938, Konovalets died in Rotterdam as a result of a special operation by Soviet special services. He was killed by NKVD agent Pavlo Sudoplatov, who handed over an explosive disguised as a gift.

For more than eight decades, Yevhen Konovalets was buried in the Netherlands. Now his remains have returned to Ukrainian soil for the first time.