KIEV, November 22 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine marked on Saturday Freedom Day and commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Stalin-era famine, a coincidence President Viktor Yushchenko described as symbolic.
Addressing an international forum, Yushchenko said: "This year, Freedom Day coincides with the day of commemoration of victims of Ukraine's greatest tragedy, the Holodomor of 1932-1933. This is deeply symbolic. The hideous artificial famine, organized by the criminal Stalinist regime, was aimed at breaking for good the Ukrainians' will to restore the sovereignty of their country. But we have survived, held out and won. We obtained independence in 1991, and defended freedom in 2004."
Yushchenko was brought to power by the "Orange Revolution" that followed the 2004 presidential elections.
Forty-four foreign delegations, including the presidents of Georgia, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as representatives of international organizations attended the international forum.
On behalf of his nation, the Ukrainian president thanked 13 countries which had recognized the Holodomor as an act of genocide, and a number of international organizations, which made decisions denouncing the Holodomor as a crime against humankind.
The famine was caused by forced collectivization. Estimates as to the amount of victims in Ukraine vary greatly, with some 2 million being the lower end of the scale.
Russia says the famine cannot be considered an act that targeted Ukrainians, as millions of people from different ethnic groups lost their lives at that time in vast territories in the North Caucasus, the Volga region, central Russia, Kazakhstan, west Siberia, and the south Urals.
Ukraine does not blame either Russia or its people for the Holodomor, Ukraine's ambassador to Russia, Konstyantyn Hryshchenko, was quoted by the UNIAN news agency as saying on Saturday.
"We do not think that Russia and the Russian nation, which suffered great losses itself and which also was a victim of Stalin's terror and lost millions of people, are somehow to blame for the tragedy," Hryshchenko said.
In a letter to Yushchenko released by the Kremlin last week, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused Kiev of using the Holodomor to drive a wedge between Ukraine and Russia, and urged efforts to forge a common position on the tragedy.
The letter provoked disappointment in Ukraine.
