Israel's Herzog says important to remember Holodomor

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said it was vitally important to commemorate the 1930s starvation of millions in Ukraine under Joseph Stalin, yet did not adopt language used by Kyiv, which defines the tragedy as a "genocide."

Ukraine's memorial day for the Holodomor, as the famine is known, falls on the last Saturday in November each year. In a message to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, published by Walla News and Axios correspondent Barak Ravid, Herzog said the world ought to recall the Stalinist atrocity at a time when Ukraine is once again faced with the prospect of food scarcity on account of a war of aggression launched by Russia.

“It is important to commemorate the memory of the victims of the Holodomor, and I recall how moved I was to lay a wreath during my visit one year ago at the memorial site in honor of those who perished,” Herzog wrote. "This memorial serves as a stark reminder of the vital importance of fighting hunger and standing united to ensure food security, as we must never forget that it is the innocent who will suffer the harshest consequences when food becomes scarce.”

The 1932-33 Holodomor — Ukrainian for "death by starvation" —  is regarded by Kyiv as a deliberate act of genocide by Stalin's regime with the intention of wiping out the peasantry. The brutally coercive campaign of "collectivization" seized grain and other foodstuffs and left millions to starve. Some historians put the total death toll as high as 10 million.

The Holodomor has long been a source of hostility between Russia and Ukraine. Moscow controversially rejects Kyiv's account, placing the events in the broader context of famines that devastated regions of Central Asia and Russia.