The history that probably explains why there are Russian separatists in Ukraine
https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-famine-of-1932-33-HolodomorThe famine of 1932–33 (Holodomor)The result of Stalin’s policies was the
Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932–33—a man-made
demographiccatastrophe unprecedented in peacetime.
Of the estimated five million people who died in the Soviet Union, almost four million were Ukrainians. The famine was a direct assault on the Ukrainian peasantry, which had stubbornly continued to resist
collectivization; indirectly, it was an attack on the Ukrainian village, which traditionally had been a key element of Ukrainian national
culture. Its deliberate nature is underscored by the fact that no physical basis for
famine existed in Ukraine. The Ukrainian grain harvest of 1932 had resulted in below-average yields (in part because of the
chaos wreaked by the collectivization campaign), but it was more than sufficient to sustain the population. Nevertheless, Soviet authorities set requisition quotas for Ukraine at an impossibly high level.
Brigades of special agents were dispatched to Ukraine to assist in procurement, and homes were routinely searched and foodstuffs confiscated. At the same time, a law was passed in August 1932 making the theft of socialist property a capital crime, leading to scenes in which peasants faced the firing
squad for stealing as little as a sack of wheat from state storehouses. The rural
population was left with insufficient food to feed itself. The ensuing starvation grew to a massive scale by the spring of 1933, but
Moscow refused to provide relief. In fact, the Soviet Union exported more than a million tons of grain to the West during this period.
HolodomorDead child on the streets of Kharkiv, Ukraine, during the Holodomor, photo by Alexander Wienerberger, 1933.
Diocesan Archive of Vienna (Diözesanarchiv Wien)/BA Innitzer
The
famine subsided only after the 1933 harvest had been completed.
The traditional Ukrainian village had been essentially destroyed, and settlers from Russia were brought in to repopulate the devastated countryside.Soviet authorities flatly denied the existence of the famine both at the time it was raging and after it was over. It was only in the late 1980s that officials made a guarded acknowledgement that something had been amiss in Ukraine at this time.
