Ukraine reaps pledges of support for 90th anniversary of Holodomor

< /p> UPDATE DAY

Ukraine garnered pledges of support in the face of Moscow on Saturday, the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor, the famine deliberately caused by the Stalinist regime in the 1930s, which has acquired new resonance since the Russian invasion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has assured that his people will hold their ground in the face of Russian attacks, which regularly cause massive power and water cuts as winter temperatures set in.  

“Ukrainians have been through really terrible things. And despite everything, they retained the ability not to obey and their love of freedom. In the past they wanted to destroy us with hunger, now with darkness and cold,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video posted on Telegram. 

“We cannot be broken,” he said. 

Several European leaders made the trip to kyiv on Saturday for the commemorations of the Holodomor, which Ukraine considers a “genocide”. 

According to the media in Poland and Lithuania, the prime ministers of these two countries that are close supporters of kyiv, Mateusz Morawiecki and Ingrida Simonyte, are passing through for talks which should notably focus on a possible new wave of Ukrainian immigration to Europe this winter. 

The Ukrainian Border Guard Service confirmed that Morawiecki had “visited kyiv and honored the memory of the victims of the Holodomor”. 

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo is also visiting kyiv, his first since the start of the Russian invasion. According to the Belga agency, it provides additional financial support of 37.4 million euros for Ukraine. 

“Arrived in kyiv. After the violent bombardments of the past few days, we stand with the Ukrainian people. More than ever before,” he said on Twitter. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced in a video additional aid of 10 million euros to support grain exports Ukrainians, impacted by the war. 

The German Parliament took the decision on Friday to define as “genocide” the Holodomor, which caused the death of approximately 3.5 million Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933 against a background of land collectivization. 

Russia rejects this classification, arguing that the great famine which raged in the USSR in the early 1930s did not only claim Ukrainian victims, but also Russians, Kazakhs, and among other peoples.