Ukraine is getting new pledges of support, starting with France. “I announce today an additional contribution of 6 million euros for the transport and distribution by the World Food Program of cereals from Ukraine to Yemen and Sudan,” Emmanuel Macron announced in a video.
“We have chosen to act in solidarity with the most vulnerable countries. Russia, for its part, continues to exploit hunger as a means of pressure and food as a weapon of war, ”he indicated in his message.
A symbolic announcement ahead of the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor, a famine deliberately caused by the Stalinist regime in the 1930s, and which has acquired a new resonance since the Russian invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has ensured that his people will stand firm in the face of Russian attacks, which regularly cause massive power and water cuts as winter temperatures rise.
“Ukrainians have been through really terrible things. And despite everything, they have retained the ability not to submit and their love of freedom. Once they wanted to destroy us with hunger, today with darkness and cold,” he said in a video. Posted on Telegram.
“We can’t be broken,” he said.
Several European leaders traveled to kyiv on Saturday for commemorations of the Holodomor, which Ukraine calls a “genocide.”
Cascade aid from European countries
The Prime Ministers of Poland and Lithuania, two of Ukraine’s closest supporters, Mateusz Morawiecki and Ingrida Simonyte, thus spoke with their counterpart Denis Chmygal.
The three leaders issued a joint statement after the meeting emphasizing their continued support for Ukraine and denouncing Russia’s actions.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo also paid a visit to Kyiv, the first since the start of the Russian invasion.
According to the Belgian agency, it provides additional financial support of 37.4 million euros for Ukraine, in particular to help the population cope with winter against a background of power outages. “I arrived in Kyiv. After the intense shelling of the last few days, we support the Ukrainian people. More than ever before,” she said on Twitter.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced in a video additional aid of 15 million euros to support Ukraine’s cereal exports, interrupted by the war.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also pledged EU support and accused Russia of “using food as a weapon”.
“We see that history repeats itself”
On Friday, the German Parliament took the decision to define as “genocide” the Holodomor, which caused the death of several million Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933 in a context of land collectivization.
But Russia rejects this classification, arguing that the great famine that struck the USSR in the early 1930s claimed not only Ukrainian victims, but also Russian, Kazakh, and other peoples.
At the Holodomor Memorial Center in central Kyiv, a dozen Orthodox priests clad in black and silver robes gathered for a religious ceremony honoring famine victims on Saturday.
“It was an artificially created genocidal famine… Now that we are living through this massive war launched without provocation by Russia against Ukraine, we see history repeating itself,” said Pope Oleksandre Chmurgin, 38.
Among those gathered to commemorate the victims of the famine, lawyer Andriï Savtchouk, 39, spoke of an “irreparable” loss for Ukraine.
“Stalin’s system, the repressive state wanted to destroy Ukraine as a nation. Today we see (President Vladimir) Putin continue Stalin’s efforts,” he said.
A death in Chassiv Iar
On the front lines, prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine continued on Saturday with 12 people released on the Kyiv side. Moscow, for its part, announced that it had recovered nine of its men.
In Dnipro, in central Ukraine, a Russian bombardment injured at least 13 people, according to regional governor Valentin Reznitchenko. Another attack in Chassiv Iar, in the east, left at least one dead and two wounded, the regional prosecutor’s office said.
In the capital, where part of the population has spent the last three days without electricity after the massive Russian strikes on Wednesday, the municipality has announced that it has restored 75% of the electricity supply and 90% of the heating, in temperatures close to zero degrees. Celsius degrees.
Source: BFM TV
