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Published 04:45 IST, January 2nd 2021

Ukraine: Far-right activists march through Kyiv

Bandera remains a deeply divisive figure in Ukraine, glorified by many in western Ukraine as a freedom fighter but dismissed by millions in eastern and south-eastern Ukraine as a traitor to the Soviet Union's struggle against the occupying German army.

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About a thousand far-right activists marched through Kyiv on Friday to honour Stepan Bandera, a controversial Ukrainian independence leader who died in 1959.

The march was held in the Ukrainian capital on what would have been Bandera's 112nd birthday.

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Bandera remains a deeply divisive figure in Ukraine, glorified by many in western Ukraine as a freedom fighter but dismissed by millions in eastern and south-eastern Ukraine as a traitor to the Soviet Union's struggle against the occupying German army.

He was a leader of Ukraine's nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s, which included an insurgent army that fought alongside Nazi soldiers during part of the Second World War.

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04:45 IST, January 2nd 2021