Yevhen Konovalets reburied in Ukraine 88 years after assassination by Soviet agent
Yevhen Konovalets, an early 20th-century Ukrainian military and nationalist leader assassinated by a Soviet agent in Rotterdam in 1938, has been reburied at the National Military Memorial Cemetery near Kyiv.
The ceremony took place on August 18 and was attended by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior Ukrainian officials, a hromadske correspondent reported.
In his speech, Zelenskyy thanked those who had preserved the memory of Konovalets for decades and those for whom bringing his remains back to Ukraine had been “a matter of honor.”
“Konovalets knew that a strong state needs a strong army and was an organizer of the Ukrainian military, whose courage continues to inspire our soldiers,” Zelenskyy said.
He added that Ukraine had failed to establish lasting independence during Konovalets’s lifetime because it lacked unity, political leadership and strong ties with the outside world.
“But Ukraine’s time has come. Independence was restored, and we defended Ukraine’s right to be itself,” Zelenskyy said. “Only our state, only Ukraine, will choose its national path.”
Oleksandr Alfiorov, head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, said that when Konovalets was buried in Rotterdam in 1938, Ukrainians living in exile regarded their stay abroad as temporary and hoped that they - and eventually Konovalets - would return home.
“They swore at his grave that they would bring him back to Ukraine,” Alfiorov said. “Today, 88 years later, their pledge has been fulfilled.”
Konovalets’s remains were recently returned to Ukraine from Crooswijk Cemetery in Rotterdam, where he had been buried since his assassination.
Who was Yevhen Konovalets?
Born near Lviv in 1891, Konovalets commanded the Sich Riflemen Corps of the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic during Ukraine’s struggle for independence in the aftermath of World War I.
He later founded the Ukrainian Military Organization and became the first leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.
Konovalets was killed in Rotterdam on May 23, 1938, in an operation carried out by Soviet intelligence. Soviet agent Pavel Sudoplatov gave him a box of chocolates containing an explosive device, which detonated after the two men parted.
Konovalets was buried in Rotterdam. His remains have now returned to Ukraine 88 years after his death.