U.S. State Department on Holodomor: Soviet Union could not break spirit of Ukrainian people

November 24, 2019 (UNIAN) U.S. State Department on Holodomor Remembrance Day has said the Soviet Union could not break the spirit of the Ukrainian people. "This November we honor and remember the millions of Ukrainians who perished eighty-six years ago during Holodomor, the catastrophic famine created by the barbaric policies of the Stalin regime," U.S. State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement by on November 23, 2019. According to her, through the deliberate seizure of Ukrainian land and crops and forced collectivization, the Soviet Union caused widespread starvation and death and immeasurable human suffering. "While this horrific tragedy was one of the most atrocious of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union could not break the spirit of the Ukrainian people," she said. Ortagus said Ukraine is again under attack today. "Russia's occupation of Crimea and continued aggression in eastern Ukraine has resulted in roughly 13,000 deaths. Even still Moscow attempts to manipulate and destroy the aspirations of the people of Ukraine. But Russia's malign campaign misjudges Ukrainians resilience and ignores their desire for a better future. That campaign is doomed to fail," she said. Morgan Ortagus stressed as people around the world unite in remembrance of the Holodomor's innocent victims, the United States reaffirms its commitment to a democratic and prosperous Ukraine – secure within its internationally recognized borders and able to shape its own destiny.

The Holodomor  derived from  "to kill by starvation" was a famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. It is also known as the Terror-Famine and Famine-Genocide in Ukraine, and sometimes referred to as the Great Famine or the Ukrainian Genocide of 1932–33. It was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country. During the Holodomor, millions of inhabitants of Ukraine, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine. Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by Ukraine and 15 other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government.