UK recognizes Holodomor famine as genocide of Ukrainian people

DW reported the information.

The corresponding decision was made by the House of Commons in London unanimously. It is not binding on the British government.

The author of the resolution, Conservative Pauline Latham, sees this decision as a message to the Russian president in connection with the war against Ukraine.

"The USSR murdered millions of Ukrainians using policies of forced starvation and forced migration, which are reminiscent of what is going on today in Ukraine. Stalin in the 1930s, like Putin today, was aiming to destroy the nation of Ukraine and the concept of Ukrainian identity," she said.

Leo Docherty, the Secretary of State at the British Foreign Office, called the parliament's decision "wholly understandable" but emphasized the British government's position that such qualifications are a matter for the courts.

In 2006, the Verkhovna Rada passed the law "On the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine," which defined the Holodomor as an act of genocide - a purposeful intentional act to exterminate a part of the Ukrainian people. In 2016, the Ukrainian parliament approved an appeal to the states of the world to recognize the Holodomor as genocide of the Ukrainian people.

• On May 23, the Slovenian Parliament adopted a declaration recognizing the Holodomor as genocide of the Ukrainian people, and on May 17, the French Senate adopted a corresponding decision.

• Another 27 countries and 2 international organizations have also done so, including Australia, Belgium, Belarus, Bulgaria, Brazil, Vatican, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Moldova, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the United States, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Iceland, the European Parliament, and the Baltic Assembly.