Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy sings the national anthem during his visit in Kherson, Ukraine November 14, 2022.
Ukrainian Presidential Press Service | Reuters
Ukraine accused the Kremlin on Saturday of reviving the “genocidal” tactics of Josef Stalin as Kyiv commemorated a Soviet-era famine that killed thousands and thousands of Ukrainians within the winter of 1932-33.
The remembrance day for the “Holodomor” comes as Ukraine is battling to repel invading Russian forces and cope with sweeping blackouts attributable to air strikes that Kyiv says are geared toward breaking the general public’s fighting resolve.
“Once they desired to destroy us with hunger, now – with darkness and cold,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. “We can’t be broken.”
The Holodomor, which roughly translates as “death by hunger”, has taken on an increasingly central role in Ukrainian collective memory for the reason that Maidan revolution in 2014 ousted a Russian-backed president and bolstered national consciousness.
In November 1932, Soviet leader Stalin dispatched police to seize all grain and livestock from newly collectivized Ukrainian farms, including the seed needed to plant the following crop.
Tens of millions of Ukrainian peasants starved to death in the next months from what Yale University historian Timothy Snyder calls “clearly premeditated mass murder.”
“The Russians can pay for the entire victims of the Holodomor and answer for today’s crimes,” Andriy Yermak, the top of the presidential administration, wrote on Telegram.
Russia has targeted critical infrastructure across Ukraine in recent weeks through waves of air strikes which have sparked widespread power outages and killed civilians.
Tens of millions of Ukrainians were still without power after fresh strikes this week, Zelenskyy said late on Friday.
“The winter is already difficult, and if all the pieces continues the identical way, then it is going to be very just like what we read in history books,” Artem Antonenko, a 23-year-old marketing specialist, told Reuters in central Kyiv.
The Kremlin has denied that its attacks, which have only galvanized Ukrainian public anger, were geared toward civilians but said on Thursday Kyiv could “end the suffering” by meeting Russia’s demands to resolve the war.
In an announcement on Saturday, Ukraine’s foreign ministry accused Moscow of reviving the tactics of the Thirties.
“On the ninetieth anniversary of the 1932-1933 Holodomor in Ukraine, Russia’s genocidal war of aggression pursues the identical goal as through the 1932-1933 genocide: the elimination of the Ukrainian nation and its statehood,” it said.
Moscow denies the deaths were attributable to a deliberate genocidal policy and says that Russians and other ethnic groups also suffered due to famine.
Ukrainians typically mark the memorial day, which was established after the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and which falls on the fourth Saturday of November, by placing candles of their windows.
Pope Francis this week compared Russia’s war in Ukraine to what he called the “terrible genocide” of the Stalin-era and said Ukrainians were now affected by the “martyrdom of aggression.”
Grain exports
Kyiv’s foreign ministry also condemned what it said were Russia’s current attempts to weaponize food by undermining a U.N.-brokered deal to unblock Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg echoed the same sentiment on Saturday when he addressed an International Summit for Food Security in Kyiv by video link alongside several other European leaders.
“Today, Russia is using hunger as a weapon of war against Ukraine, and to create division and further instability amongst the remainder of the world,” he said.
Russia’s ambassador to Turkey said on Friday that Moscow sends its representatives to more ship inspections in Istanbul per day than mandated under the Black Sea grain deal, rejecting a Ukrainian accusation that Russia is slowing down the method.
Oil price cap
The value for Russian seaborne oil needs to be capped at between $30 and $40 per barrel, lower than the extent that Group of Seven nations has proposed, Zelenskyy said on Saturday.
European Union governments, searching for to curb Moscow’s ability to fund the Ukraine war without causing an oil supply shock, are split over a G-7 push that the cap be set at $65 to $70 per barrel. It’s because of enter into force on Dec. 5.
“The limit that’s being considered today — about $60 — I feel that is a man-made limit,” said Zelenskyy, who has consistently pushed allies to impose tougher sanctions of all sorts against Russia.
“We would love the sanctions to be very effective on this fight, in order that the limit is at the extent of $30-$40, so Russia feels them (the sanctions),” he told a news conference.
The thought of the cap is to ban shipping, insurance and re-insurance firms from handling cargoes of Russian crude across the globe, unless it’s sold for lower than the worth set by the G7 and its allies.
Poland, Estonia and Lithuania are pushing for a much lower cap than $65 to $70 per barrel while Greece, Cyprus and Malta want a better cap.
