The Holodomor has long been a source of animosity between Russia and Ukraine. (File)
Kyiv:
President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed on Saturday that Ukraine will continue to resist Russian attacks as the country marked the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor famine that struck millions of Ukrainians under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
Several European leaders traveled to Ukraine to pledge their support after weeks of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid caused widespread power and water cuts as temperatures plummeted with the onset of winter.
“Once they wanted to destroy us with hunger, now – with darkness and cold,” Zelensky said in a video posted to social media. But he added: “We can’t be broken.”
In the meantime – and despite the war – Ukraine had sent 12 million tons of food to the world market, including 2.5 million tons to countries facing food crises themselves, he said.
Leaders from Belgium, Lithuania and Poland were in Kiev on Saturday to commemorate the victims of the 1932-1933 Holodomor – Ukrainian for “death by starvation” – regarded by Kiev as a deliberate act of genocide by Stalin’s regime.
The Polish and Lithuanian prime ministers were in Ukraine for talks that, according to local media, could focus on a possible new wave of migration from Ukraine this winter.
Ukraine’s border guard said Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was in Kiev and was “honoring the memory of the Holodomor victims” at a memorial in the Ukrainian capital.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo was also present, his first visit since the Russian invasion.
“Arrived in Kiev,” he wrote on Twitter, posting photos of him shaking hands with Zelensky. “After the heavy bombings of the past few days, we stand with the people of Ukraine. More than ever before.”
Belgium has pledged an additional 37.4 million euros ($39 million) in financial support to Ukraine, the Belga news agency reported.
In Kiev, the power has been out for the past three days after Russian strikes for many residents. Officials there said 75 percent of electricity and 90 percent of heating had been restored as temperatures plummeted to near freezing.
‘History repeats itself’
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron have both announced new financial aid packages to support Ukraine’s grain exports, which have been disrupted by the war.
“The most vulnerable countries should not pay the price of a war they did not want,” Macron said in a video statement.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised that the EU would continue to support Ukraine and accused Russia of using “food as a weapon”.
Lawmakers from Germany will recognize the Holodomor as “genocide”, according to a draft text of a joint resolution by Germany’s ruling coalition and the opposition seen by AFP.
According to the German resolution, up to 3.5 million people died that winter alone, but historians estimate the total death toll at 10 million.
On Thursday, the senate in Ireland, which suffered its own devastating famine in the 19th century, declared it recognized the Holodomor as a “genocide of the Ukrainian people”.
At the tall, candle-shaped Holodomor Memorial Center in central Kiev, a dozen Orthodox priests in black and silver robes gathered on Saturday for a religious ceremony for famine victims.
“It was an artificial genocidal famine… Now that we are going through this massive unprovoked war of Russia against Ukraine, we see history repeating itself,” priest Oleksandr Shmurygin, 38, told AFP.
Among those gathered to remember the victims of the famine was 39-year-old lawyer Andryi Savchuk, who spoke of the “irreparable” loss to Ukraine.
“Stalin’s system, the repressive state, wanted to destroy Ukraine as a nation. Today we see Stalin’s efforts being continued by President Vladimir Putin,” he said.
The Holodomor has long been a source of animosity between Russia and Ukraine.
Russian disputes the genocide designation, placing the events in the broader context of famines that devastated regions of Central Asia and Russia.
Russia and Ukraine announced their latest prisoner exchange on Saturday, freeing 12 Ukrainians and nine Russians.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NewsMadura staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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