Kiev, Jan 22, Jan 22, 2010, SPA -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, in a move likely to embarrass the two rivals fighting to succeed him, today elevated a controversial wartime nationalist leader to the status of hero of Ukraine, according to Reuters. Yushchenko issued a decree conferring the honour on Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Ukrainian nationalist forces (OUN) which fought against both Nazi invaders and Soviet forces in World War Two and after. Bandera continued to resist Soviet rule in Ukraine well into the 1950s. In the Soviet period he was the embodiment of anti-Sovietism and "bourgeois nationalism" and the very mention of his name was a post-war criminal offence in the Soviet Union. He was assassinated in 1959 by a KGB agent in Munich. The nationalist-inclined Yushchenko now has no chance of a second term in office and his rehabilitation of Bandera was a decisive move to square the issue away before he stepped down. Yushchenko, in his decree, referred to Bandera's "demonstration of heroism and self-sacrifice in fighting for an independent Ukrainian state." His decision, he told a public meeting in Kiev, "had been awaited by millions of Ukrainian patriots for many years. It was certain to irritate the Kremlin which has dubbed Yushchenko "anti-Russian" because of his nationalist policies. It will also pose a problem for opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich and particularly Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko seeking to succeed him. They meet in a final vote on Feb. 7. Some observers said Yushchenko, deeply opposed to both Yanukovich and Tymoshenko, had deliberately tried to place both candidates on the spot. --SPA 19:03 LOCAL TIME 16:03 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/740551