Holodomor: Zelensky welcomes Germany’s decision – Russia criticizes it

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The Bundestag last night approved a resolution tabled jointly by the government and main opposition, describing the famine in Ukraine 90 years ago as an “inhuman crime”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised on Wednesday night the adecision of the German lower house to call the famine in Ukraine 90 years ago a “genocide”judging that it had been deliberately caused.

Mr Zelensky spoke of a decision “for justice” and “for truth” in his speech last night. It sends, he added, “the very important message to many other countries in the world that Russian revanchism will not succeed in rewriting history.”

The Bundestag last night approved a resolution submitted jointly by the government and the official opposition, describing the famine as an “inhuman crime”.

An estimated 4 million people starved to death in the then Soviet Ukraine during the days of Joseph Stalin.

A large majority of members of the Bundestag were in favor, with the head of the parliamentary committee on German-Ukrainian friendship Robin Wagner speaking of a decision that highlights “the barbaric truth of Stalinist violence, not to relativize German crimes in the Soviet Union, but to learn from the historical truth”.

Christian Democrats’ human rights spokesman Michael Brandt also referred to Nazi crimes, stressing that “we Germans in particular have a special historical debt and responsibility to Ukraine.”

Whether the famine in Ukraine—part of the wider famine of 1932-1933 in the then-Soviet Union—was indeed “genocide” is, however, disputed by the Bundestag decision by several historians.

Moscow criticizes Germany’s decision

Today Russia announced that this decision by Germany is an anti-Russian challenge and an attempt by Germany to wash away its Nazi past.

The Bundestag yesterday, Wednesday, approved a resolution submitted jointly by the government and the official opposition, which stated that Holodomor — as the Ukrainians called the famine (from the words “holod”, which means “hunger”, and “mor ‘, meaning ‘extermination’)– ‘constitutes a crime against humanity’.

An estimated 4 million people starved to death in the then Soviet Ukraine during the days of Joseph Stalin.

The decision was welcomed late yesterday, Wednesday, evening by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

But Moscow today rejected the term “genocide”, arguing that millions of people across the Soviet Union, including Russia, suffered during the same period.

“This is yet another attempt to justify and advance a campaign – set up in Ukraine and supported by the West – aimed at demonizing Russia and pitting Ukrainians against Russians,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. .

“Germans are trying to rewrite their history (…) downplay their own guilt and blur the memory of the countless crimes of an unprecedented nature committed by Nazi Germany during World War II,” the statement added.

The Russian ministry also accused the German parliament of “reviving the fascist ideology of racial hatred and discrimination and trying to absolve itself of its responsibilities for war crimes.”

Some countries in Europe and the world, including the Baltic countries that were part of the USSR, also recognize the Holodomor as genocide.

Volodymyr Zelensky pointed out in his speech last night that the decision of the German parliament was a decision “for justice” and “for truth”. It sends, he added, “the very important message to many other countries in the world that Russian revanchism will not succeed in rewriting history.”

RES-EMP

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