Claim:
RT makes the false claim that Ukraine’s Holodomor famine and genocide was a Russophobic myth.
The article mockingly states that “for decades, various Ukrainian politicians, and other opinion formers, have convinced their people that the starvation of the 1930s was a deliberate and cynical extermination of the country’s intelligentsia and peasantry. Perpetrated by “Russians.””
Narrative Context:
This is an example of the Kremlin’s persistent denial of the Holodomor in Ukraine, employing the pretext of Russophobia as a means to downplay and discredit the historical event – and the lived experiences of Ukrainians around the world.
Fact:
The Holodomor was a famine that was deliberately orchestrated by Josef Stalin and Soviet authorities in Ukraine.
Renowned Holodomor and Soviet history expert Anne Applebaum has said that in 1932, the early stages of a widespread Soviet famine were triggered by the Soviet policy of collectivization and a grain-requisition policy. By autumn of that year, Stalin opportunistically seized upon the crisis, directing its impact specifically towards Ukraine. Applebaum’s book illustrates a series of measures that were implemented during that period, which distinctly targeted Ukraine. These measures included the blacklisting of specific farms, towns, and villages, the establishment of a border cordon preventing people from leaving Ukraine, and the enforcement of special measures against Ukrainian cultural institutions and the Ukrainian language, all of which were executed concurrently.
In 2006, the Verkhovna Rada officially recognized the Holodomor of 1932-33 as a genocide against the Ukrainian people. Presently, 15 UN member states and the Vatican acknowledge the Holodomor as an act of genocide in Ukraine. Both the European Parliament and PACE have also labeled the Holodomor a crime of the Soviet regime against its own people and a crime against humanity.
The Government of Canada recognized the Holodomor in May 2008 with an Act declaring the famine an act of genocide and establishing a national Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day. Similar legislation was then passed by the provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and, in 2019 British Columbia, and in 2022, Nova Scotia.
