Yesterday marked the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor – which means ‘murder by starvation’ – Stalin’s manmade famine that killed millions of Ukrainians through his collectivisation policy. The horrors of the Holodomor are hauntingly captured in the film Mr Jones which you can watch on iPlayer (follow the link).
On the night of Holodomor Memorial Day, Russia launched 70 kamikaze drones in a vast attack, injuring five people in Kyiv including a child. Video footage emerged of a smashed up kindergarten, and President Zelensky described the attack as a “deliberate act of terror”.
Through this attack, through this whole awful war, Russia wants to finish what it attempted to start with the Holodomor: the destruction of Ukraine through genocidal means, to meet imperialist aims.
The message that Putin and his acolytes have pushed since the start of the war in 2014 is that he is “de-nazifying” Ukraine. When Crimea was annexed in 2014, the arrival of the “little green men”, and the occupation of parts of the Donbas region, Putin used the Hitler playbook to justify his military aggression, claiming that the Russian-speaking population were under attack by the Ukrainian population (this was how Hitler “justified” first in the occupation of the Sudetenland and then “justified” the invasion of Poland) and they needed protection from “Nazis”. The MFA is still making this claim, defending its own genocide by inventing another.
Putin has continued to push the ‘de-nazification’ lie to explain for his own fascistic aggression, claiming that Russia is “liberating” Ukraine from “Nazi filth”. The fact that Russia has a far bigger issue with far-right thugs than Ukraine, and that its own domestic and foreign policy is clearly fascistic, is ignored. This is a regime which, as I wrote last week, has resurrected a 1930s Nazi slogan to push its regressive, rolling back of modernity, misogynistic and racist ideology.
But the Nazi lie is only one part of Putin’s delusional picture. The second links directly back to the Holodomor, and it is the genocidal policy that Ukraine does not and should not exist. In the run-up to the memorial day for Russia’s last murderous assault against the Ukrainian people, Igor Markov sat on state TV and argued that Russia should liquidate Ukraine and the very notion of being Ukrainian must be eradicated.
There are many ways to perpetuate a genocide, and Russia is pursuing all the methods in its full-scale invasion against Ukraine.
The first is the killing of civilians. While the United Nations estimates that around 10,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since February 2022, the true figure is much higher, as such a tally does not include the death toll in the occupied territories. Some estimates put the death toll in Mariupol alone as high as 21,000, and that was in April 2022. We simply do not know how many people have been killed.
Civilians are killed by shelling, and by extra-judicial killings. But they are also killed in occupied territories by the cold, when the occupiers cut off gas and electricity. They are killed by shortage of medicines, when the occupiers bomb hospitals and prevent people accessing medical care they need. When I visited the mass grave in Izium, my fixer explained that some of those buried there died because of the impact of occupation, the lack of heat, food, and medicine, as well as those who were murdered. An interviewee told me how his mother had died, she had diabetes and could not access insulin that would have saved her life.
Such deliberate deprivation is reminiscent of the Holodomor. No one has to starve, it’s a choice to make people go hungry and die. No one has to die of preventable diseases: this is a choice.
Another form of genocide is the kidnapping of children. It is difficult to determine exact figures on child abduction, but at least 20,000 children have been identified as being taken to Russia, with fewer than 400 returned. Some put the figures as high as 700,000 children. The abducted children are given Russian names, they are indoctrinated in Russian propaganda - forced to become Russian, while their Ukrainian heritage, birth, and family is eradicated (watch this documentary Escape from Russian Captivity, produced by Slidstvo, for an insight into the lives of abducted children). Now we are seeing the enforcement of Russian passports on Ukrainians living in occupied territories.
Occupation itself is another way of enacting genocide. At a recent screening of 20 Days in Mariupol, another film I urge you to watch, the panel discussed how Russians were putting up residential homes in the city which Russian people were moving into. Again, this is reminiscent of the ways in which ethnic Germans moved into the homes of murdered and removed Jewish people in occupied territories such as Poland (one of my abiding memories of the TV series World at War was an ethnic German woman describing moving into her new home in Poland, where previously a Jewish family had lived, and her absolute inability to acknowledge what that meant). This is a policy of trying to replace Ukrainian people with Russian people, in order to claim the city as Russian and therefore frustrate its liberation.
Then there is rape as a weapon of war, with Russian soldiers forcibly impregnating Ukrainian women. After my trip in July, I spoke to a specialist in sexual and reproductive health working in Poland with Ukrainian refugees. She told me about supporting a woman who was pregnant as a result of rape and who wanted to access an abortion. “How can I tell my husband I am pregnant from the enemy?” she said. War also leads to low birth rates – the Ukrainian birth rate has plummeted since the start of the full-scale invasion, in part due to women leaving the country, and couples feeling afraid to have children among so much violence and uncertainty.
We also should not forget the targeting of minority ethnic groups, such as the treatment of the Tatar population in Crimea who are subject to ethnic cleansing, according to the population’s veteran leader. I spoke to a human rights expert in Kyiv in July about the treatment of the Tatars, including forced imprisonment and disappearances, which echo historical targeting of the minority.
And the final point I want to make is the cultural vandalism that is in itself a form of genocide, and one that goes back to the period of the Holodomor.
In the 1920s, Ukraine enjoyed a cultural renaissance, with writers, artists, poets, architects, musicians forging a sense of cultural identity that was for Ukraine and its people. But the stars of this cultural moment soon became known as the “executed renaissance” after many authors were murdered by Stalin, or took their own lives. The cultural life of Ukraine was a target for Stalin’s genocidal regime, because it wanted to deny the existence of Ukrainian creativity and autonomy, and make Russian culture the dominant force – this is a clear act of imperialistic violence.
Today, that vandalism is seen in the destruction of theatres, libraries, churches and UNESCO heritage sites. This week I saw a tweet showing Russian lorries bringing in books by Russian authors in the Russian language to the occupied territories, replacing the Ukrainian literature in libraries with its own tomes.
“Culture is a huge part of identity, so of course the enemy will target this part of our identity,” said Natalia Ivanova, curator at Kharkiv’s world-famous Yermilov Centre, told me in September. “This war is not just about defending territory, it is about a lot of elements of identification of identity. Language is identity. We have a culture, a cultural heritage on which we stand, and it’s foundational.
“The narrative from our enemy is that Ukranians are the same as Russians, but also that we are second class,” she continued. “That you can have Russian culture and forget your own.” Ivanova therefore told me that art is an act of resistance in this war.
Her friend, the world-respected artist Pavlo Makov also spoke to me about how Russia weaponised culture in the war, saying “Russia for 300 years, was using all her efforts and hell a lot of money up to the level that people cannot understand how Russia can be so cruel”.
Those efforts were made by laundering its reputation via culture – basically, how can the country of ballet and Tolstoy be a genocidal, imperialist, fascist regime?
“Russian culture was always made basically, for export,” Makov explained. “The main part of the population was not influenced by this culture. Art, literature, theatre – these are the instruments of culture. But real culture is how society behaves inside of itself, and outside. The rules of the society inside of the society and the rules that this society applies to work with the neighbours, this is culture”.
By denying that Ukraine has its own culture, its own language, its own heritage and identity, Russia can justify its aggression – it can say it will eradicate Ukraine because it argues that Ukraine does not exist anyway.
When we go back to Igor Markov’s statement that the very notion of being Ukrainian must be eradicated, he is not only talking about the killings of Ukrainian men, women and children – he is talking about the smashing of any sense of identity, heritage, language and culture. The foundation identity described by Ivanova must be obliterated through bombs and propaganda, in order for Russia to achieve its genocidal and imperialist goals.
To meet its imperialist aim of eradicating the very notion of being Ukrainian, so that Ukraine is Russia, it can justify whatever violence, and whatever crimes, and whatever vandalism. It has to claim there is no such thing as Ukrainian culture and identity, it has to claim Ukrainian children as Russian, and it has to claim that Ukraine is a threat to Russia, that is its imperialist strategy. The failure by some on the left to recognise Russian imperialism, even when it is bombing libraries and heritage sites, killing civilians, kidnapping children, and raping women as a weapon of war, is shameful on every measure.
Russia’s imperialist ambitions will not stop at the Ukrainian borders with Poland, Moldova, Romania and the rest of Europe. And that is why, as we remember the victims of the Holodomor, we must make every effort to remember the now – to keep our focus on Russian aggression in Ukraine and to keep standing in solidarity and support of Ukraine.
Almost all of the drones fired over Ukraine on the night of the 24/25 November were repelled by air defences, the technology that has saved countless lives from falling bombs. But Ukraine needs more air defences. It needs more arms. Because, as official after official, civilian after civilian, told me when I was in Ukraine in September, “if Putin wins this war, then all of Europe will burn” (watch me talk about this on the Radicalized Podcast).
I am genuinely fearful that the west is starting to suffer from Ukraine fatigue, with the US right in particular becoming increasingly antagonistic to providing aid and arms, and Orban playing politics with people’s lives as per usual. We cannot look away, we cannot stop defending Ukraine. The cost is too high.
Obligatory book plug
I had an amazing evening at the ICA chatting about Bodies Under Siege with an amazing panel as part of the launch for After Sex, published by Silver Press and edited by Alice Spawls and Edna Bonhomme. I don’t think I have any other events planned for this year but please do buy the book for your family and friends as a great stocking filler!
What I loved
I first heard about how the Duchy of Cornwall inherits estates of those who die intestate a few years ago, what I didn’t know was the same applied for the Duchy of Lancaster, nor how the Royals are using the funds to renovate luxury properties… but I do know now thanks to this great investigation by Maeve McClenaghan, Rob Evans and Henry Dyer.
Revealed: King Charles secretly profiting from the assets of dead citizens
What I’m writing
Nothing published this week because I am focusing my attention on a few long-term investigations rather than weekly news stories (you’re doing what??? cries my bank manager lol)
Hopefully at least two of which will be published next week but hey ho, maybe not!
What I’m reading
Still reading A Death in Malta by Paul Caruana Galizia, and I am at the point now where the family is pursuing justice and facing just the most horrific and calculated obstacles. Also re-reading Possession which is JUST AS AMAZING as I knew it would be.
What I’m watching
I went to see Rigoletto at the Royal Opera House this week and I loved it. It was incredible, mainly because of the lighting. They lit it like it was a Renaissance painting. So hard to explain but just stunning to see. I didn’t know the story so everything comes as a first-time surprise. So far it is my third favourite opera out of the five I have seen live - after La Boheme and Tosca.
Last night I watched the film Odette on iPlayer, about a woman SOE in World War Two. It was good, she was very brave, and I thought the torture scene was quite visceral for a 1950 film. And last Sunday I watched one of my all time faves, Now, Voyager. WE HAVE THE STARS!!!!!
Both on iPlayer - follow the links.
That’s it for this week. I hope my thoughts on genocide aren’t too harrowing. They are meant as an attempt for me to think through what is happening in Ukraine, and any inaccuracies or poor choices of words, I take responsibility for.
Until next week… ciao ciao!
The arrest warrant for Vlad the Invader was issued because of his kidnapping of children.
The irony of Russia's Great Patriotic War is that it helped defeat Nazis imperiling freedom and human rights only to see a resurgence of fascist ideology in Mother Russia herself.