On video: Ukraine remembers the Soviet famine (Reuters)
Ukraine accused the Kremlin on Saturday of reviving the "genocidal" tactics of Joseph Stalin, while Kyiv cited the Soviet famine that led to the deaths of millions of Ukrainians in the winter of 1932-33.
On Friday, President Yitzhak Herzog sent a letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he emphasized that "it is important to commemorate the victims of the Holodomor."
"The Holodomor Memorial Day serves as a reminder of the importance of fighting hunger and ensuring food security. We must not forget that the innocent are the ones who will suffer the hardest from the consequences of a lack of food," Herzog Lazlansky wrote.
A source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem claimed that the letter does not imply any change in the Israeli position or recognition of the Holodomor as genocide.
On the other hand, the German House of Representatives, the Bundestag, is expected to declare this week that the millions of Ukrainians who starved to death during the rule of the former Soviet Union leader, are considered "victims of genocide."
The statement said that "people throughout Ukraine, and not only those who lived in the agricultural areas, were affected by the famine and the repression of the problem. Therefore, the criteria that define genocide are met."
According to Kyiv, the starvation move was intended to harm nationalist Ukrainians who wanted to subvert the Soviet Union.
Pope Francis also compared Russia's war in Ukraine to what he called the "horrible genocide" during the Stalin era.
Holodomor Memorial Day is being celebrated as Ukraine battles Russian forces that invaded the country in February and faces widespread power outages caused by Russian missile attacks.
"Once they wanted to destroy us with hunger. Now - with darkness and cold," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram.
"We cannot be broken."
The importance of the Holodomor, or "Soviet murder", has intensified over the years in the collective memory, and especially since the revolution in 2014 in which the pro-Russian president was ousted and national awareness began to strengthen.
In November 1932, Stalin ordered the police to confiscate all grain and livestock from collectivized Ukrainian farms, including the seeds for planting future crops.
Millions of Ukrainian farmers starved to death in the months that followed, in what some call "premeditated mass murder."
In a statement, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry accused Moscow of reviving the tactics of the 1930s.
"On the 90th anniversary of the 1932-33 Holodomor in Ukraine. The goal of Russia's war is the same goal as it was during the 1932-33 genocide: the destruction of the Ukrainian nation and state," it said.
Russia denies that the mass death was caused by a genocidal policy and says that Russians and other ethnic groups also suffered from the famine.
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