Thanks for the weapons! Ukrainian street to be renamed after John McCain

The Ukrainian capital of Kiev is to get its own ‘John McCain Street,’ in honor of the late US Senator whose regime-change cheerleading helped sweep President Petro Poroshenko to power in 2014.

It’s not an April Fools’ joke: Kiev is really getting a ‘John McCain Street.’ Although President Poroshenko has mused renaming the Ukrainian capital’s Ivan Kudrya Street in honor of the Republican Senator before, he once again announced his plan after meeting with McCain’s widow, Cindy, over the weekend.

Calling McCain “a great friend and advocate of Ukraine,” he noted the “historic importance of Senator McCain's heritage in establishing and building a new independent Ukraine.”

Poroshenko certainly owes McCain a debt of gratitude after the US Senator jetted off to Ukraine in 2013 to cheer on the ‘Maidan revolution’, a coup that soon swept Poroshenko to power. Speaking to crowds of protesters in Kiev, McCain told them: “Ukraine will make Europe better, and Europe will make Ukraine better… America is with you.”

McCain said he aimed to “bring about a peaceful transition” of power in Ukraine, yet back in Washington the Arizona lawmaker decided that the best way to do this was to relentlessly lobby presidents Obama and then Trump to send more weapons to the country.

In return, Poroshenko has planned the street renaming since McCain’s death from brain cancer last year. Speaking about the plan in September, Poroshenko’s spokeswoman denounced Ivan Kudrya as a “terrorist, a KGB operative who acted against the Ukrainian national liberation movement.”

To Russians, however, Kudrya was a wartime hero who led the Kiev resistance’s fight against the Nazis during World War II. As a Soviet intelligence officer, Kudrya sabotaged Nazi infrastructure and assassinated German soldiers, until he was caught, tortured, and killed by the Gestapo in 1942.

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