Andrii Melnyk and his wife reinterred at National Military Memorial Cemetery

Andrii Melnyk, the leader of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and his wife Sofiia Fedak-Melnyk have been reinterred at the National Military Memorial Cemetery.

Source: Interfax-Ukraine

Details: The ceremony had been scheduled for 24 May but was postponed to today due to the large-scale Russian strike on Kyiv.

Those present included the country's political leadership, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, military personnel, members of the public, and clergy.

The ceremony was conducted in accordance with military funeral rites. Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Head of the Office of the President, noted that Melnyk's own testament was observed in organising the reinterment.

Soil brought from Melnyk's grave in Luxembourg was also carried to the burial site.

Zelenskyy said: "Colonel Andrii Melnyk has returned to a different Ukraine – not the one he was forced to leave, but the one he dreamed of. [...] He has returned to a Ukraine that is strong, free and proud; a Ukraine that knows what it wants; and a Ukraine that holds together without internal discord, and it is precisely for this reason that, through its unity, it maintains its strong positions. He has returned to a Ukraine that will not falter, a leading Ukraine that has become long-range, has become far-sighted and that will certainly live in peace."

This is the first honorary reinterment of a Ukrainian independence fighter at the National Military Memorial Cemetery. Vereshchuk said preparations are under way to transfer the remains of the first OUN leader Yevhen Konovalets to Ukraine. The authorities of Rotterdam, where he is buried, have already granted permission for exhumation.

The president noted that work on the Pantheon of Distinguished Ukrainians had begun before the full-scale Russian invasion. In June 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the procedure for reinterring distinguished fighters for Ukrainian independence in the 20th century at the National Military Memorial Cemetery.

Background:

• The remains of Andrii and Sofiia Melnyk were exhumed from the Bonnevoie municipal cemetery in Luxembourg on 19 May. Funeral services were held at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv on 22-23 May.
• Andrii Melnyk was a Ukrainian military and political figure, one of the closest associates of the first OUN leader Yevhen Konovalets, an organiser of the Sich Riflemen formation in Kyiv and one of the founders of the Ukrainian Military Organisation.
• Sofiia Fedak was a member of Plast (the largest scouting organisation in Ukraine), a fighter and a professional financier. She became Andrii Melnyk's wife in 1929 following his release from Polish imprisonment, having visited her future husband throughout all four years of his incarceration.
• In 1944, the Nazis interned her alongside her husband in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Melnyk received an invitation from the Grand Duke of Luxembourg to be his guest, and from late 1945 lived in Luxembourg with his wife.
• There, Andrii Melnyk worked towards the consolidation of émigré forces and put forward a programme to establish the World Congress of Ukrainians, which was realised after his death. In Luxembourg, Sofiia worked in banking and assisted her husband in maintaining the OUN network.
• Andrii Melnyk died on 1 November 1964. His wife attended to his grave. Although he was buried at the Bonnevoie municipal cemetery in Luxembourg, the headstone was created by Ukrainian sculptor Hryhorii Kruk. The structure, which holds artistic value, was brought from Ukraine.
• Sofiia Fedak-Melnyk died on 31 July 1990 at the age of 88.

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