Russia’s impunity for past crimes allowed for further atrocities in Ukraine – FM Kuleba

Those who believe Moscow began its plan to annihilate Ukraine and erase Ukrainian identity in 2022 or even 2014 should read more about Sandarmokh, the Holodomor genocide, and other horrible crimes committed by the Russian Federation over the ages.

The relevant statement was made by Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the social media platform X, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

Eighty-six years ago, from October 27 to November 4, the Soviet authorities massacred over 1,000 people in the Sandarmokh forest. Among them, there were prominent Ukrainian writers and poets, artists, scientists, dramatists, and other luminaries.

In Ukraine, they are known as the Executed Renaissance, namely poet Mykola Zerov, the founder of the Berezil Theater Les Kurbas, educators Antin, Ostap, and Bogdan Krushelnytskyi, writers Valerian Pidmohylnyi, Mykola Kulish, Pavlo Filipovych, Geo Shkurupiy, Myroslav Irchan, Oleksa Vlyzko, Valeryan Polischuk, Hryhorii Epik, Marko Voronyi, Oleksa Slisarenko, Mykhailo Yalovyi, historians Matviy Yavorskii, Serhii Hrushevskyi, and many others.

In 1937-1938. about 6,000 people, representing 60 different ethnic groups, were killed there.

The Soviet Union had been hiding this crime for five decades, until its collapse. Only in 1997, after lengthy searches, a group of Russian historians discovered the massacre site.

Now, the above group. Memorial, is being oppressed and labeled a ‘foreign agent’ by Putin’s dictatorship. Sandarmokh’s leading researcher, historian Yuri Dmitriev, was arrested twice in 2016 and 2018, and was sentenced to 13 years in jail in 2020.

Kuleba emphasized that the aforementioned crimes had never been properly prosecuted or punished. And it is precisely this total impunity that has enabled the Russian evil to commit horrible atrocities in Bucha, Izyum, Mariupol, and elsewhere.

“Ukraine must win this war and bring evil to justice, no matter how long it takes, to ensure Ukrainians’ right to live in peace and safety in their homeland,” Kuleba concluded.