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Ukraine marks Holodomor anniversary, U.S. blasts Russia's ongoing aggression:
By RFE/RL
Ukraine is marking the 85th anniversary of the Soviet-era Holodomor famine that claimed millions of lives.
The Holodomor took place in 1932 and 1933 as Soviet authorities forced peasants in Ukraine to join collective farms by requisitioning their grain and other food products.
Historians say the seizure of the 1932 crop by Soviet authorities was the main cause of the famine.
Many Ukrainians consider the famine an act of genocide, aimed at wiping out Ukrainian farmers. Estimates of the death toll range from 3 million to 7 million.
Along with Ukraine, at least 15 other countries have officially recognized the Holodomor as "genocide."
The U.S. State Department issued a statement marking the anniversary, saying Ukrainians "were deliberately starved to death by the regime of Josef Stalin."
"The Soviet Union's barbaric seizure of Ukrainian land and crops was undertaken with the deliberate political goal of subjugating the Ukrainian people and nation," the statement released on November 23 by spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.
The statement described the Holodomor as a "catastrophic man-made famine" that was "one of the most atrocious acts of the 20th century."
On October 3, the U.S. Senate adopted a nonbinding resolution recognizing that Stalin and those around him committed genocide against the Ukrainians in 1932-33.
Moscow has long denied any systematic effort to target Ukrainians, arguing a poor harvest at the time wiped out many in other parts of the Soviet Union.
The State Department statement said that "today Ukrainians are once again dying as a result of Russia’s attempts to destroy the identity and Western aspirations of the people of Ukraine."
It pointed out that Russia's "ongoing aggression" in eastern Ukraine has resulted in more than 10,000 deaths.
The statement reaffirms the United States' "unwavering support" for Ukraine's national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The Day of Remembrance for the victims of the famine is marked in Ukraine every year on the fourth Saturday of November.
Each year, on the fourth Saturday of November, Ukraine remembers the millions who died during the Holodomor, the Stalin-era famine that devastated the population in 1932-33. Many countries consider it to have been genocide.
