Ukraine remembers millions of victims of Stalin-era famine

Ukraine on Saturday held a day of mourning for the millions of victims of a Soviet-era famine, as the war-torn nation's leaders branded it a Russian attempt to destroy the country. The 1932-33 famine, one of the darkest episodes in Ukrainian history, happened when Stalin's forces launched a campaign of forced "collectivisation", requisitioning grain and other foodstuffs and forcing many farmers into starvation.
President Petro Poroshenko, accompanied by hundreds of Ukrainians, laid symbolic wheat ears and lit candles before the central Kiev monument to victims of the Holodomor famine - which means "death by hunger" in Ukrainian. Poroshenko dubbed the famine a crime against humanity. "We will never forget the terrible crime of the organisers of the Holodomor," he said in a statement. Oleksandr Turchynov, who heads Ukraine's Security and Defence Council, meanwhile accused the Russian "imperial regime" of causing the famine.
"Now there is a war and we again see manic attempts to destroy Ukraine," he said in a statement, referring to the ongoing separatist war in the country's east.