“Before they wanted to destroy us with hunger, now with darkness and cold,” said President Volodymyr Zelensky on the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor, a great famine that led millions to death due to Soviet Union policies. ) the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor, the great famine that hit the country in 1932 and 1933, when the nation was part of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.
The celebration took place as much of the country remains without electricity due to Russian airstrikes.
Holodomor is the Ukrainian term for death by starvation. In 1932, Stalin ordered the authorities to seize all grain and animals from newly collectivized Ukrainian farms in order to deliberately have a devastating effect on its population.
“Ukrainians have been through very terrible things,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video posted on social media. “Before they wanted to destroy us with hunger, now with darkness and cold,” he added. “We cannot be broken.”
Millions starved to death during the Holodomor, considered by Kiev to be a deliberate act of genocide.
The leaders of Poland, Belgium and Lithuania also traveled to Ukraine to mark the anniversary and renew their pledges of support amid power cuts across the country.
On Twitter, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense compared the historic episode in Ukraine with the current situation. “Anyone can see the terror that Russia is inflicting on the Ukrainian people,” the folder wrote, adding: “This time, the theft and destruction of grain is causing famine outside Ukraine’s borders, in some of the world’s poorest countries. .”
Russian attacks in Dnipro kill 13
Missile attacks on the Ukrainian industrial city of Dnipro killed at least 13 people on Saturday, officials said.
Among the victims is a 17-year-old, said the military governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Valentyn Reznichenko.
Ukrainian authorities said a total of seven residential buildings were damaged in the attacks. A warehouse was also destroyed in the city, which is the fourth largest in Ukraine.
The number of dead and injured could still rise, as several people are believed to be trapped under rubble from the damaged buildings.
Ukraine launches grain program for Africa and Asia
The Ukrainian government also announced this Saturday the creation of an international food aid program to deliver grain to the poorest countries.
Under Ukraine’s Grain program, 60 ships will be dispatched from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports to deliver food to countries that are in dire need of grain delivery right now, such as Yemen, Sudan or Somalia. Shipments are expected to be completed by the middle of next year.
“Ukraine has always been and will remain the guarantor of world food security, and even in such harsh wartime conditions, the Ukrainian leadership works towards global stability,” said Zelensky.
Countries such as Germany and Belgium will help finance deliveries.
“This initiative allows us to avoid possible problems with the supply of food in certain African countries,” said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo.
In addition to benefiting Ukraine’s economy, the program seeks to garner support from Asian and African countries, which have been hardest hit by the global food crisis and are targets of Russian disinformation campaigns to deflect attention from Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine.
Tens of thousands remain without electricity
In the Ukrainian capital Kiev, around 130,000 people are still without electricity after a wave of Russian air strikes that targeted critical infrastructure.
Kiev’s military administration said it expected final repairs to be completed within the next 24 hours. All heating systems in the city of 3 million will then have to work again.
City mayor Vitali Klitschko urged calm and warned that the power cuts could trigger political unrest.
“We must continue to work together to defend the country and protect the infrastructure,” he said, adding that a solution was being sought “at record speed”.
A series of attacks by Russian forces on Wednesday disrupted power, water and heating supplies in Kiev and many other parts of the country, which is grappling with frigid temperatures as winter approaches.
bl (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)
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