Holodomor in Ukraine 90 years on
Between three and seven million people died of starvation in Ukraine in the winter of 1932-1933. The famine, known as the Holodomor ("killing by hunger"), was the result of a deliberate policy by Stalin. Among other measures, despite the crop failures of previous years large parts of the yields of Ukrainian farmers were confiscated and redirected to the cities. The current war is giving new impetus to efforts to have the Holodomor classified as genocide.
Moral support for Ukraine
The Frankfurter Rundschau welcomes the resolution of the German Bundestag:
“The famine also hit other parts of the Soviet Union back then, including the North Caucasus, the Volga region and Kazakhstan. But only in Ukraine was it aimed at brutally subjugating a people and making them submit to communism. ... The naming of the Holodomor as genocide will not help Ukraine directly in its struggle for sovereignty today. But it is a strong political signal that the injustice will be denounced at some point. And it gives Ukrainians moral support.”
Current war facilitates classification
Ukrainian politicians are right to point to parallels with the current situation, writes Russia expert Anna Zafesova in La Stampa:
“For decades, scientists and politicians - even those who agreed on the immense scale of the famine that was caused - were divided over the degree to which it could be classified as the deliberate extermination of Ukrainians on the part of the rulers in Moscow. ... The international campaign to have the Holodomor declared a genocide is no longer just the concern of a few NGOs. Thousands of Europeans commemorated the victims yesterday. The historical events are now seen in a different light, and the targeted bombing of a country resisting invasion also makes it easier to understand the mechanisms that were set in motion 90 years ago.”
Blueprint for the Holocaust
History might have played out very differently if the Holodomor had been denounced internationally when it was happening, historian Olexandr Sinchenko writes on gordonua.com:
“Perhaps after 1933 Hitler thought he could get away with the extermination of the Jews. Stalin's Holodomor was a blueprint for the Holocaust. Would there have been no Holocaust if there had been no Holodomor? We have no way of knowing. All we know is that the Holodomor was not condemned by the American president, nor by the governments of France or Britain. They all knew everything but remained silent. If evil is not punished, it spreads. If you don't slap a dictator's hands in time, other dictators' fingers start itching.”
Putin's strategy also genocide
El País sees parallels with Russia's current missile attacks against Ukraine:
“The military offensive no longer has any other goal than to than to tighten the siege on the civilian population. ... The evidence of war crimes is mounting. ... The strategy of recent weeks aimed at mass destruction is clearly identifiable as genocide. ... Putin wants to break the morale of the population and force Zelensky to accept negotiations from the weakened position of a besieged country.”