Russia needs hunger as weapon in future. Judgment of evil must be timely, - Zelenskyy
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, stated this during his address on the occasion of the Day of Remembrance of the victims of the Holodomor, Censor.NET informs.
"Every year at the end of November, we feel cold and frost on our skin. Regardless of the weather conditions and our location. The cold is inside our hearts when we are all united by a difficult date - the fourth Saturday of November. Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holodomor. When we feel great pain and anger at the same time. From the impossibility of forgetting, understanding, and even more so, forgiving the terrible crimes of genocide that the Ukrainian people experienced in the 20th century.
Men, women, children. Millions of innocents were murdered. Countless and countless. Countless then. When anything but the truth was written in the "cause of death" column. People were callously "written off" by the thousands, they did not consider it necessary to count, they did not consider people as people. Countless in general. How many of them, starving, fell in the field, on the road, in their own yard? How many were not found? How many were not searched? When the leaders had one need - that everyone be silent, and the relatives had neither the ability nor the strength to search and prove the truth, then - there was no one to search. How many are there?" the head of state raises the question.
According to him, no one knows the exact answer to this question. As well as answers to other questions. How can you want to kill an entire people, erase an entire nation? How can you take away the last thing from people? The last food, the last means of subsistence, the last hope for life, and a chance for salvation.
"Normal people are not capable of imagining and comprehending this. But there is one thing we know for sure. They wanted to exterminate us, humble us, kill us. They failed. They wanted to hide the truth from us and silence terrible crimes forever. They failed.
They wanted to confuse us, mislead us, make us not believe, doubt, not remember, and therefore forgive. They couldn't. And today, with deep sadness and respect, we honor the memory of millions of our people," Zelenskyy added.
He reminds, that today, as always, at exactly 4:00 p.m., we will light candles of memory. Many are with their families, their children, and grandchildren.
"Some of the little Ukrainians will see this candle for the first time. They will ask about it. And we will tell them a story. This candle will tell them a story that they should know, remember, pass on to their children and grandchildren. And they - to their children and grandchildren. And as long as we light this fire, the memory of millions of our ancestors, who were purposefully, prepared, and cynically pushed into the arms of starvation, will not be extinguished. Because they are Ukrainians. Because they were an ideological and class threat to the imperial establishment, they were free people in spirit, and therefore, they were considered dangerous for the regime and its geopolitical intentions. And then armed squads went around the houses and took everything that could be eaten.
And then the peasants fell to their knees, begged to leave at least some crumb for the children, but the inhumans were relentless. And then, before the eyes of their relatives, grandparents, parents, and relatives who refused to eat "so that the children would have more" quietly faded away. And then whole families, clans, streets, and villages disappeared. A tragedy where not only millions were killed, but also millions of the unborn. A tragedy over which today we cry and remain silent so quietly that the whole world must hear it. This is what Ukrainian pain sounds like," Zelenskyi said.
He also emphasizes that the ideologues, organizers, and perpetrators of those crimes did not bear responsibility and fair punishment during their lifetime. But that doesn't mean we should forgive and forget. Today, the names and biographies of all the guilty should and are being punished. A punishment of shame, a stigma of shame for their role in world history, a truth that everyone on the planet must know. The truth is that today is the least that can be done to honor the millions of victims. Recognition of those terrible acts against Ukrainians as crimes of genocide. It is very important. This is not a formality. This is the attitude of the civilized world to the truth. This is a tribute to justice.
"We thank all the states that chose justice and recognized it. They recognized it officially. They recognized the Holodomor as a crime against people, against history, against Ukraine. A conscious crime. Exactly 30 years ago, Estonia and Australia were the first to do it. Later - Canada, Hungary, and the Vatican. Lithuania, Georgia, and Poland, Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador, Colombia, and Mexico, Portugal, and the United States of America, and when the war began, it became clear to all who had doubted it.
Everyone saw literally, live, what modern Russia, which calls itself the heir of the USSR, is capable of. What it's like to be the heir to the most terrible crimes and murders of that era. The murders. An attempt to destroy nations. And during these two years of full-scale war, almost as many countries as since the beginning of our independence have now recognized the Holodomor as genocide. Germany, Great Britain, Italy, France, Czech Republic, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Brazil, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, Iceland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, European Union and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Justice spreads throughout the world. The world should know about it, the world should recognize it, the world should not forget about it," the president emphasized.
"I thank everyone who, together with Ukraine, restores historical truth and justice. Who calls a spade a spade. And who does not allow the names of those guilty of crimes of genocide and war crimes to hide behind the lie of alleged non-involvement. 90 years ago, the world could not fully see what was happening in reality. Now some have not seen it. There are only those who choose not to notice. There are not many of them. And it will be even less. The truth makes its way. Along this path, the world must unite and condemn the crimes of the past. The world must unite and stop today's crimes," the summary reads.
"In the last century, famine came from Moscow. Now there are words of denial. And each of these words of denial actually sounds like a confession: they need hunger as a weapon in the future. Hunger, cold, terror. Every ton of grain stolen by them now, the blockade of every one of our cities, every Russian attack on our ports now, on Ukrainian grain warehouses and our elevators, every "Shahed" that targets our logistics, every Russian missile whose trajectory is against Ukrainian life, all this is the past that has returned because it was not condemned in time. This is a process where the line of totalitarian Soviet policy and the line of policy of modern Russia together form an "equals" sign. The evil was not stopped. There was no atonement. And now we are stopping it.
This is a time of historic accountability for murderers and for those who have chosen to be the followers of murderers. Who acts the same as before. And justice is important not in 90 years, but now. Because, although there are crimes that do not have a statute of limitations, justice must be done in time. The judgment of evil must be timely. Justice needs living witnesses. Those who will see how Russian evil will be punished. And those who will tell not only about what our people had to go through but also about how our people put a just end to the attempts to destroy Ukraine, murder, subjugate, or erase it. Ukraine persists. Ukraine will not fade away. Ukraine will preserve itself and the truth. And justice. And they will become the truth, the living truth of Ukraine that has endured, and they will become living witnesses to the words of one of the most famous novels about the Holodomor - "The Yellow Prince": "Their evil will disappear, but the truth will never," Zelenskyy said.
