Ukraine opens criminal case over Stalin-era famine

In late 2006, Ukraine's parliament recognized the Stalin-era famine known as Holodomor as an act of genocide by the Soviet authorities. However, Russia has consistently rejected Ukraine's interpretation of events. "On May 22, the Security Service of Ukraine [SBU] launched a criminal case on the genocide in Ukraine in 1932-1933," the statement said. The SBU accused the Bolshevik regime of orchestrating the famine to prevent Ukrainians from establishing their own sovereign state. "These illegal activities were aimed at starving to death the Ukrainians as a national group," the SBU said, citing eyewitness reports and scientific research. The famine was caused by forced collectivization. Estimates as to the amount of victims in Ukraine vary greatly, from 2 million to some 14 million. The SBU also accused the "totalitarian regime of Stalin" of "creating living conditions aimed at the total physical elimination of the ethnic Ukrainian group." Russia says the famine cannot be considered an act that targeted Ukrainians, as millions of people from different ethnic groups also lost their lives in vast territories across the Soviet Union, in the North Caucasus, the Volga region, central Russia, Kazakhstan, west Siberia, and the south Urals. A lawmaker and member of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine - People's Self Defense party called the SBU's move "absurd." "From a legal point of view, the SBU's actions are absurd," Hennadiy Moskal said, adding that the issue should be addressed from a historical and political point of view, not a legal one. The lawmaker also noted that those responsible for the famine would have died long ago, and pointed out that an 18-year-old in 1933 would be 94 today. "As a rule, people in their 40s and 50s were in power," he said, Kazinform cites RIA Novosti. See www.en.rian.ru for full version.