Honorable President of the Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia, Mr. Talat Xhaferi, I appreciate your speech very much.

Esteemed Members of Parliament and Government,

Your Excellencies, Dear guests,

I would like to thank you for finding the time and opportunity to come to the opening of the exhibition "Ukraine Remembers, The World Acknowledges!", which is dedicated to commemorating the victims of the Holodomor of 1932-1933, which takes place in Ukraine and around the world on the forth Saturday of November (this time on the 26^th of November).

The Holodomor is a genocide of the Ukrainian people, which was caused by the deliberately organized actions of the stalinist communist leadership in order to create an artificial famine in 1932-1933 in Ukraine, as a result of which millions and millions of people died.

The Holodomor in Ukraine , in its essence, was both a tool and a mechanism aimed at exterminating the Ukrainian nation.

The Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine is part of the implemented bloody coercion of the soviet stalinist regime.

One of the first to understand the "systemic nature" of the extermination of the Ukrainian nation was the world-famous lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who clearly distinguished the stages of such extermination:

1) From 1920 to 1926 - murder and imprisonment of Ukrainian political figures, writers, artists, teachers;

2) Liquidation of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church; priests and higher clergy were killed or tortured;

3) Starvation of peasants, the weapon which was used against them - hunger;

4) The ethnic unity was destroyed by way of forcibly deporting Ukrainians.

According to the second article of the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide" genocide means any acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, any national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.

In order for a criminal act to qualify as genocide, it is necessary to prove the presence of special intention on the part of the subject of the crime.

The intention, that is, the criminal goal, in this case, is the extermination of Ukrainians which was realized by criminal actions: violent "collectivization"; maintaining "black boards" - entering into the register those who did not "hand in the bread"; termination of any trade; fines in the form of food; taking away products, as well as seeds, in a violent way; confiscation of all property; stalinist camps; shootings.

Robert Conquest wrote in his book "The Harvest of Sorrow" that the Ukrainian peasant suffered twice - both as a peasant and as a Ukrainian.

In January 2010, the Court of Appeal of the city of Kyiv issued a ruling in a criminal case based оn the fact of the crime of genocide committed in Ukraine during the years 1932-1933 - that is, a legal basis exists.

Moreover, on the 19^th of April, 1988, the report of the US Congress Special Commission on the Ukraine Famine, headed by Dr. James Mace, was published. One of its conclusions stated that “Joseph Stalin and those around him committed genocide against Ukrainians in 1932-1933”.

In one of his speeches, Mace said: "In order to centralize the power in the hands of Stalin, what was needed was to destroy the Ukrainian peasant, the Ukrainian intellectuals, the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian understanding of their history and to destroy Ukraine as such. This was simply calculated and primitive: No people, as a result no country, and the result - no problem."

James Mace noted that generations of Ukrainians will live, in fact, with a collective psychological trauma - a traumatized post-genocide society.

Post-genocide society…obviously, it was so, until the 24^th of February, 2022. When the world learned about the mass burials of Ukrainians, which were tortured by russians.

90 years have passed since the Holodomor genocide, but now - Irpin, Bucha, Liman, Izyum, Mariupol - these are all separate symbols of the genocide committed by a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the russian federation.

Committing genocide in Ukraine, the russian federation, a member of the UN Security Council: exterminates the civilian population of Ukraine, killing, torturing, causing severe bodily harm, forcibly transferring children to the russian federation, deliberately destroys housing, hospitals, schools, civilian energy infrastructure in the pre-winter period.

The genocide continues, precisely because the previous genocide was not punished.

We are indebted to the brave English and American journalists - Gareth Jones, Malcolm Muggeridge, William Henry Chamberlin, who, at risk of losing their own lives, broke through the iron ban and reported the truth about the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine.

Only gradually, over time, we began to learn the truth about the Holodomor crime.

Now, multiple sources show us the crimes that the russian army commits in Ukraine almost in real time.

Ukraine appealed to the countries to support the creation of a Special International Tribunal in order to investigate the crimes and punish the criminals which terrorize, torture and kill our people. A number of states supported this initiative.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine appealed to foreign parliaments and governments to recognize the crimes that the russian federation is currently committing on the territory of Ukraine as genocide of the Ukrainian nation.

Ukraine also appeals for recognition of the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine as a genocide of the Ukrainian people.

Recognition would be an incredibly strong support, it would add spiritual strength to those who are on the front line fighting for the right to live.

Thank you for your attention. Your support means a lot to us.