Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on May 14 said it had started an investigation into Vasyl Marushchynets, Ukraine’s Consul General in Hamburg, Germany, who allegedly posted derogatory statements about Jews, Russians, Hungarians, Roma and other nations on his Facebook page.
Marushchynets was suspended from his job and could be dismissed if the ministry finds his xenophobic posts are genuine, ministry spokesperson Mariana Betsa told the media on May 14.
“Anti-Semites and those who provoke hatred between nations have no place either in a civilized society or in the (Ukrainian Foreign Ministry),” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin wrote on Twitter on May 13.
“The state secretary of the (Ukrainian Foreign Ministry) has started a disciplinary investigation. We will sort out all the details,” he added.
Though Marushchynets set his Facebook page to be accessible to friends only, the media got access to it and took screenshots of posts that included a call to attack “Zionists,” Russians, and also Polish, Hungarian and Roma people.
The screenshots also include addresses to god to punish Jews and Russians for the Great Famine in Ukraine, denial of the Holocaust, and some remarks praising fascism and Nazism.
“It’s honorable to be a fascist,” Marushchynets appears to have written in one of his posts, according to the screenshots of his Facebook.
Blogger Anatoliy Shariy was the first to bring Marushchynets’ alleged posts to public attention, via a YouTube video published on May 12.
The media and the internet users also shared a photo of a person who looks like Marushynets holding a cake with the words “60 Mein Kampf,” a reference to the book by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
“I doubt that his colleagues didn’t know about his Nazi mindset, so the entire top staff of the Consulate should be fired,” Anton Shekhovtsov, a Ukrainian writer and researcher of the far right movements wrote on Twitter.
Posts on Marushchynets’ Facebook page that are open to the public include derogatory comments about Russians and also some racist remarks, such as the words “a ray of light in a dark kingdom” written under a group photo in which he stands with a group of black people.
