Statement by the NSC Spokesman Mike Hammer on Ukraine’s Holodomor Remembrance Day

Today we commemorate 77 years since the tragic events of the “Holodomor,” when millions of innocent Ukrainians perished as a result of the deliberate policies of Joseph Stalin.  Americans join with the Ukrainian people and ethnic Ukrainians around the world in remembering all those who died so senselessly.  
 
The Holodomor was a man-made tragedy in which millions starved to death when Ukrainian farms and crops were seized in 1932 and 1933.   This was a calculated attempt to break the will of the people of Ukraine and to end their desire for self-determination.  But it failed, because the people of Ukraine—and our strong Ukrainian-American communities across the United States—never gave up hope that their homeland would be free.
 
We therefore also pay tribute to the strength and resilience of the Ukrainian people who endured unspeakable hardship and ultimately emerged stronger.  Today, Ukraine is a proud and independent nation, and the United States is grateful for the friendship between our peoples and the partnership between our nations   As free peoples, we are united not only in our remembrance of those lost in the Holodomor, but in our shared determination to prevent such inhumanity from ever happening again.