We can’t be broken: Zelensky recalling famine anniversary

President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed yesterday that Ukraine would continue to resist Russian attacks, as the country marked the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor famine that affected millions of Ukrainians under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

Several European leaders travelled to Ukraine to pledge support after weeks of Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid caused widespread power and water cuts as temperatures plunge with the onset of winter.

“Ukrainians went through very terrible things... Once they wanted to destroy us with hunger, now — with darkness and cold,” Zelensky said in a video posted on social media.

“We cannot be broken,” he added. Leaders from Belgium, Lithuania and Poland were in Kyiv yesterday to commemorate the victims of the 1932-33 Holodomor — Ukrainian for “death by starvation” — which is regarded by Kyiv as a deliberate act of genocide by Stalin’s regime.The Polish and Lithuanian prime ministers were in Ukraine for talks that, according to local media, could in particular focus on a possible new wave of migration from Ukraine this winter.

Ukraine’s Border Guard Service said Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was in Kyiv and “honoured the memory of the Holodomor victims” at a memorial in the Ukrainian capital. Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo was also in Kyiv on his first visit since Russia invaded. “Arrived in Kyiv. After the heavy bombing of recent days, we stand with the people of Ukraine. More than ever before,” he said on Twitter, posting photos of him shaking hands with Zelensky. According to the Belga news agency, Belgium pledged a further €37.4mn ($39mn) of financial aid for Ukraine.

Authorities in Kyiv, where power has been out for many residents over the past three days following Russian strikes, said that 75% of electricity and 90% of heating was restored as temperatures dipped to near freezing. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron announced in video statements new financial aid packages to support Ukrainian grain exports, which have been disrupted by the war.