Speaking at Ukraine’s National Museum of the Holodomor, the head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said, “honoring the victims of the genocide is not only a matter for the state, but also for every Ukrainian.”

Between 7 and 10 million Ukrainians died of starvation between 1932 and 1933 in the then-member of the USSR after the Soviet Union took much of it grain and introduced disastrous modifications to the area’s grain industry.

Many scholars say Joseph Stalin was trying to end the Ukrainian independence movement through his policies, which would make the Holodomor a genocide.

On July 23, the National Museum of the Holodomor-genocide officially handed artwork from the International Charitable Fund of the Holodomor Museum to the museum itself.

“I think that this is the key to understanding today’s event,” Shevchuk said.

“The state has a duty to honor its citizens, in particular those who became victims of this genocide-famine. But the state cannot usurp the monopoly on honoring these victims. Ordinary people, ordinary Ukrainians, should also have the opportunity to join this national noble cause,” he said.

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He also noted that honoring the victims of the Holodomor is a moral duty of every Ukrainian, and pointed out the Catholic Church helped raise funds for the museum.

“Our Church is a part of civil society,” he said.”

We gave the opportunity to ordinary people to join this cause … I want to remember those who contributed to the construction of the Museum not only as a building, but so that the exhibition itself spoke the truth about our pain, about Ukrainian memory,” Shevchuk added.

During the ceremony, Viktor Yushchenko and Ivan Vasyunyk, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Holodomor Museum’s International Charitable Foundation, thanked the benefactors who made institutional contributions to the implementation of the project, raising more than $800,000.

“The state takes responsibility for the capital construction of the Museum, and philanthropists from Ukraine and the world are responsible for attracting the best project forces both for architectural planning and for designing the exposition. And today is the summary of the first stage,” Vasyunyk said.

The Museum opened while Ukraine is in a current conflict with Russia.

Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

There have been increased aerial attacks by both sides in the past few months, and intense fighting continues in the east of the country.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told his Chinese counterpart that Russia was not ready for “good faith” negotiations to end the war.

Kuleba’s statement to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi came as he visited China for talks starting Tuesday.

China says it is a neutral party in the war, and has called for a negotiated peace between Ukraine and Russia, while at the same time providing political support for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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