Commentary

300 days without a piece of bread to the meager dinner, 2.4.1933. Photo from the private archive of Mykola Bokan, State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine

Euromaidan Press, Article by: Hennadiy Yefimenko, Translated by: Christine Chraibi

Editor’s Note

The scientifically sound estimate of the number of Ukrainians who starved to death in Stalin’s Holodomor famine is roughly 4 million. Yet, many scholars attempt to impose unrealistically inflated numbers — up to 15 million. This does no justice either to the victims, or to the status of the recognition of the artificial famine as a genocide of Ukrainians, writes historian Hennadiy Yefimenko. For years on end, scholars, academics and historians have been inflating the number of deaths caused by the Stalin-made famine in 1932-33 (Holodomor). This is mainly due to the fact that reliable information sources were not available. Nevertheless, academic circles continued to...

The cause of the Lviv pogrom in early 1941 was the mass killings of inmates in the prisons of Lviv, which were carried out by the NKVD prior to the Red Army’s retreat from the city. Einsatzgruppe С opened the city jails to discover the consequences of NKVD brutality. The Nazis forced Lviv Jews to drag out the bodies of the executed prisoners. The victims’ bodies were laid out for inspection, so that relatives could identify and bury their loved ones. The Nazis accused the Jews of these crimes, and conducted masterful agitation amidst the masses, provoking them to commit violent actions against the city’s Jewish population. Nazi propaganda declared that the pogrom was an act of “sacred vengeance” on the part of Ukrainians for the crimes of the “Judeo-Bolsheviks.”...

The Canada-Ukraine Foundation (CUF) today announced its support of a project to demine agricultural lands in Eastern Ukraine to make them available for use by the local citizens. CUF has donated $13,000 USD to support the “Let’s Clean Donbas Together” project mounted by the Ukrainian Deminers Association (UDA). The European Union is also contributing 40% of the total project cost towards this critical initiative. “We at the Canada-Ukraine Foundation understand the great significance that demining of arable lands has for the local civilian population living in demilitarized zones. These lands provide them with the ability to feed their families and sell their surplus harvest for their livelihoods” – said Major (Retired) Oksana Kuzyshyn, CD1, Chief Operating Officer and Chair of the Civil Society Committee at the Canada-Ukraine Foundation. “This project will also help raise the profile of the landmine issue in Ukraine and bring it to broader public attention and the attention of the Ukrainian government for funding”...

The Canada-Ukraine Foundation (CUF) announced on October 1, 2021, a donation to help fight the impacts of COVID-19 in Ukraine, particularly hard hit by the fourth wave of the global pandemic. Together with partners League of Ukrainian Canadians, Dnipro-Oshawa Fund at BCU Foundation, and the Ukrainian National Federation, CUF committed a $30,000 CAD donation to support the “Oxygen for Life” Phase 2 program mounted by Kyiv-based civil society organization Initiative E+. Transparency International has noted an acute shortage of hospital beds in Ukraine, with many COVID-19 patients not receiving required oxygen support, being discharged with low oxygen-saturation levels, and without provision of oxygen concentrators for self-management, due to shortages of equipment...

Presented biennially, the $25,000 KOBZAR™ Book Award recognizes outstanding contributions to Canadian literary arts by authors who write on a topic with a tangible connection to the experiences of Ukrainian Canadians. As the Ukrainian community celebrates 130 years in Canada, the Ukrainian stories are limitless. KOBZAR™ Book Award entries can weave through fascinating moments in world history, acquaint us with the lives of both one and the many, introduce us to the challenges of different generations and waves of immigration. Ultimately, they paint a picture of a people that proudly continues to shape the Canada we know today. Distinctive to this Award is monetary recognition for both the winner and the winner’s publisher. This year’s jury, Kerry Clare (49th Shelf), Laisha Rosnau (Author and winner of the KOBZAR™ Book Award 2020), and Ben Sigurdson (Winnipeg Free Press), is very excited to include on the shortlist a novel, a graphic novel, and a book of poetry – three styles of literature as diverse as the Ukrainian Canadian experiences which the KOBZAR™ Book Award strives to recognize...

`Despite the claims put forward by opponents of the UPA, Roman Shukhevych was no “SS-Obersturmführer” (as stated by opponents of the UPA), nor was he an “SS-Hauptmann” (as claimed by Joel Lion, Ambassador of Israel to Ukraine). The Nachtigall Battalion in which Shukhevych served was not an SS unit but part of the Abwehr, that is, the Wehrmacht. Neither Yad Vashem nor historians are in possession of any information indicating that Shukhevych took part in the Shoah. In late February–early March 2008, a group of Ukrainian historians and staff members of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) visited Israel to examine documents about Shukhevych’s participation in the Shoah, specifically his involvement, while a member of the Nachtigall Battalion in the summer of 1941, in the killings of the Jewish civilian population in the city of Lviv. The reason behind this was the statement issued by Yosef Lapid, chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, about the existence of such materials in Yad Vashem, which was broadcast on Deutsche Welle...

On July 19, 2021, Artyom municipal court of the Primorsky Krai of the Russian Federation issued a ruling to liquidate the Prosvita Far East Ukrainian Spiritual Cultural and Educational Centre in Vladivostok, and on August 28, 2021 the respective ruling came into force. The court decision was adopted upon request from the Russian Federation Ministry of Justice’s Head Office in the Primorsky Krai. The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) strongly condemns this ruling. This is yet another example of the policy of systemic intimidation and persecution of the ethnic Ukrainian minority in Russia, aimed at eliminating the Ukrainian community and cultural life in Russia...

Disinformation: Ukraine is and always was a part of Russia. The Ukrainian state is a recent “invention” and has no actual history. Facts: “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names" (Confucius). The lands around today’s Moscow were on the north-eastern periphery of the Rus’ Empire, an early Ukrainian realm with its capital in Kyiv from the 9th to the 13th centuries. The invading Mongol Horde took this northern periphery in 1237 before devastating the heartland of Rus’, including Kyiv in 1240. The northern periphery with its capital in Moscow became an Ulus (province) of the Golden Horde. Kyiv and the core of the original Rus’ realm became incorporated into the Lithuanian Commonwealth, which adopted the Rus’ (Ruthenian) language and its codex of laws...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used his September 22 address at the United Nations General Assembly to criticize the international community’s ineffective response to Russian aggression in Ukraine and support calls for the reform of the UN itself, which he branded a “retired superhero.” The Ukrainian leader painted a grim picture of the damage done to international security by the failure to stand up for international law and hold Vladimir Putin accountable for his attack on Ukraine. “No one in the world feels safe anymore. I emphasize: no one feels safe. And no one can hide behind international law as if behind a stone wall,” commented Zelenskyy...

In order to comprehend the degree of guilt of Waffen SS “Galizien” in this crime, it is necessary to make a careful study of the history of this division and then to determine that until the spring of 1944 all the infantry units did their training in the Polish camp Heidelager near the town of Dębica, east of Cracow, that is, approximately 300 kilometers from Huta. Following several requests, the division dispatched a battle group (SS Kampfgruppe Beyersdоrff, named after the commander of an artillery regiment, SS- Standartenführer Friedrich Beyersdorff, who also held the rank of police colonel). Kampfgruppe Beyersdorff consisted of an infantry battalion and an artillery battery under the command of Sturmbannführer Mykola Paliienko. But the point is that the Kampfgruppe Beyersdorff was never in Huta. According to the Polish historian Grzegorz Motyka, the Germans formed several SS police regiments numbered from 4 to 8 and called them “Galizien.” The 4th and 5th SS Pоlice Regiments, which in fact took part in the Huta Pieniacka (Ukr. Huta Peniatska) massacre consisted of 60 percent Ukrainians and 40 percent Germans; the officers were mostly Germans...