This year Ukraine is commemorating the 75th anniversary of one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophes in the history of mankind, the Holodomor of 1932 – 1933. It was genocide against the Ukrainian people wittingly and clearly designed by the totalitarian communist regime. In such a cynic and inhuman way, the Stalin’s authority endeavored to strike a fatal blow to the Ukrainian peasantry as a basis of our nation, to undermine the force of the people and to remove any possibility of renaissance of Ukraine as an independent state forever.

The archival documents attest that the Holodomor was openly of anti-Ukrainian nature. Nowadays, it has been strongly proved by scholars from many countries.

Realization of the depth of the tragedy is gradually disseminated worldwide which is testified by the lasting process of recognition of the Holodomor by parliaments of democratic states.

On this background, the communication for mass media from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation of September 24, 2008, with inadmissibly contemptuous comments on the intention of Ukraine to inform the world community of the truth about the Holodomor of 1932 – 1933 produced an indignant reaction in Ukraine.

It is hard to realize that a country which gave the world culture the great humanists Tolstoy, Roerich, Sakharov dare mock at the intentions of Ukraine to honor the memory of the victims of the great tragedy in order to make it not repeat. Instead of paying honor to the past common for our peoples, the leadership of Russia makes efforts in order to discredit the tragedy of the Holodomor.

Such position seems to be especially incomprehensible since in November 2003 the Russian Federation together with 63 UN member countries supported the joint statement where “the seventieth anniversary of the Ukrainian tragedy” was noted and in 2007 the Resolution of the 34th UNESCO General Conference session on honoring the memory of the victims of the Great Famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine in 1932 – 1933.

Such proposal was submitted by Ukraine to the 9th UN Human Rights Council session. However, in the view of the fact that the Holodomor is considered at other world forums, on September 22, 2008, the Ukrainian delegation as a compromise decided not to insist on voting the respective Council’s draft resolution.

Ukraine urges the heads and leading politicians of the Russian Federation to stop the practice of cynic negation of historical truth about the Holodomor and the attempts to justify and whiten the Stalinist offences.