WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th October, 2018) The resolution to commemorate the 1932-1933 famine in Ukraine - the Holodomor - and recognize it as genocide has passed the US Senate, Senators Dick Durbin and Rob Portman said in a joint press release.
"As a co-chair of the Senate's Ukraine Caucus, I am proud the Senate passed the resolution I introduced to raise awareness in our country of this mass tragedy," Durbin said in the release on Thursday.
Russian Foreign Ministry reminded Ukraine that Holodomor of the 1930's was the common tragedy for all the Soviet population, while attempts to present it as "the genocide of the Ukrainians" is not correct.
Russia views Ukraine's actions as an attempt to politicize history and sow discord between the two countries, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The famine spread across the southern regions of the Soviet Union including western Siberia, northern Caucasus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in the early 1930s, claiming the lives of up to 7 million people.
The Senate resolution comes on the 85th anniversary of the Holodomor.
The Senate resolution "recognizes the findings of the Commission on the Ukraine Famine as submitted to Congress on April 22, 1988, including that ''Joseph Stalin and those around him committed genocide against the Ukrainians in 1932-1933,'' the press release said.
Ukraine commemorates the victims of the famine on November 66. According to Ukrainian law, the Holodomor is recognized as genocide against Ukrainians.
In 2008, the UN General Assembly voted against recognizing the famine in Ukraine as genocide.
