Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Joel Lion has strongly condemned a decision by Ternopil City Council to rename the city stadium after Nazi collaborator Roman Shukhevych.
“We strongly condemn the decision of Ternopil city council to name the City Stadium after the infamous Hauptman of the SS Schutzmannschaft 201 Roman Shukhevych and demand the immediate cancellation of this decision,” the Ambassador wrote on Twitter.
The city Council of Ternopil had decided on March 5 to rename the city’s stadium as “Ternopil City Stadium named after Shukhevych, a Ukrainian nationalist commander of the Nachtigal battalion, which on June 30, 1941, began a series of pogroms against Jews, which they perpetrated under the auspices of the Wehrmacht, according to Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder and other scholars. They murdered approximately 6,000 Jews in those pogroms.
Ternopil’s stadium, previously known as the Avanhard or Kolo Parku stadium is the home of football clubs FC Ternopil and FC Nyva Ternopil.