November 25, 2008 - 12:15 AMT
Mikhail Veller: Golodomor was not genocide
Golodomor was not genocide, a Russian author said.
"Genocide is deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. It's a crime against a nation. It was genocide when Turks slaughtered Armenians in 1915, because the crime was committed against the Armenian nation only," Mikhail Veller told Golos Rosii (the voice of Russia) radio station.
"During World War II, Jews and Gipsy were killed irrelative of social position. It was genocide. Ukrainians suffered like the people in other republics of the Soviet Union. Presently, the Ukrainian authorities are trying to make the population break with Russia, whose influence in the country is still great. Russia's fault is also obvious. It should have recognized the mass crimes committed by the soviet power to avoid the consequences we have now," he said.
Ukraine demands that Golodomor in 1930-ies be recognized as genocide against Ukrainian people by soviet Russia.