Ukraine Marks Anniversary Of Catastrophic Stalin-Era Famine
- By Reuters
In a solemn ceremony on November 26, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, his wife Olena, and a few top officials came to pay their respects in central Kyiv at a statue known as The Bitter Memory Of Childhood, symbolizing the Holodomor. The commemoration was held amid widespread cuts in power and water supplies across the country after weeks of Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure and as temperatures plunged with the beginning of winter. The disastrous Holodomor famine took place in 1932-33 as Soviet leader Josef Stalin's police forced peasants in Ukraine to join collective farms by requisitioning their grain and other foodstuffs. Millions of people died as a result of executions, deportations, and starvation during this traumatic time in Ukraine's history. Many Ukrainians view the famine as an act of genocide aimed at wiping out Ukrainian farmers.