Without help, Ukraine will be another Tragedy - 18th September 2014

Without help, Ukraine will be another human tragedy

·        THEO THEOPHANOUS

·        HERALD SUN

·        SEPTEMBER 18, 2014 

A pro-Russian rebel guard.

HOLODOMOR. It’s a little known word in the West, but in Ukraine it evokes fear and anger. It means genocide through starvation.

While in Kiev recently, I visited the Holodomor museum, which has thousands of confronting images and documents of the millions of Ukrainianswho died of forced starvation at the hands of Stalin. In the Holodomor of 1931-32 four million died, while the earlier Holodomor of 1921-22 claimed about a million lives.

The Russian communist cadres sent by Stalin from Russia were so brutal that anyone caught with more than five ears of wheat was arrested and disappeared. The museum has a statue at its entrance of a starving girl holding five ears of wheat against her chest.

It is against that backdrop of Russian efforts to occupy, dominate and punish Ukrainians over many decades that the current crisis and Ukraine’s determination to be independent must be understood. On my visit, the Vice Prime Minister, Oleksandr Synch, conveyed his condolences for the Australians killed on MH17.

He also spoke about how Russia does not accept the idea of an independent Ukraine on its border.

“They are supplying weapons, they are supplying fighters and soon the Russian army will openly invade our territory,” he said.

That was prophetic as, shortly after, 1000 Russian troops crossed into Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin began talking about a new state in the East.

Mr Sych also put the following scenario about Flight MH17: at the same time as MH17 was flying over Ukraine, a Russian Aeroflot flight, AFL2074, was also in the area flying at about the same altitude.

“Just imagine if the rebels had shot down the Aeroflot plane,” he said. Mr Sych believes if that had happened it would have provided the perfect excuse for a full-scale invasion as Russia would have blamed Ukraine.

So could the real target of the rebels have been the Aeroflot flight? It’s a frightening thought and we will have to wait for the findings of the independent inquiry. The 38 Australians who lost their lives, and their loved ones, deserve the truth.

Ukrainians I spoke to reject any division between Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians. They say it is the Putin regime that has created an artificial division by encouraging and facilitating armed conflict in order to bring large chunks of Ukraine under Russian control.

Ukraine’s Education Minister, Serhiy Kvit, said most Ukrainian speakers also speak Russian. There is a minority of Russian speakers, mainly in the east, who do not speak Ukrainian but understand it and, since Russian is used everywhere and taught in schools, according to the minister, it is absurd to say Russian speakers are discriminated against.

During the Yanukovych years, Ukraine’s economy and defence forces were allowed to run down and the country moved towards Russian control. During mass demonstrations, the Yanukovych Russian-backed security forces attacked protesters in Maidan square early this year, killing 200 and injuring thousands.

It was that act of defiance and subsequent election of a pro-Europe president that led Russia to seek to annex parts of Ukraine.

Many people from within the newly elected administration and volunteers from abroad are trying to rebuild Ukraine’s institutions. Ulana Supran is a doctor and she and husband Markos gave up jobs in Canada to be volunteers in building medical and first aid capability. They condemn Putin’s “humanitarian” convoys as a ploy to bring in Russian soldiers

“Does anyone think that after three Holodomors in which Russian despots tried to starve Ukrainians out of existence, that suddenly Russia is humanitarian towards us?” asks Ms Sultan.

Those Ukrainians are reaching for friends who will stand with them. Despite attempts at ceasefires they are readying for the prospect of something terrible. They believe that without help, Ukraine may become another great European human tragedy.

Theo Theophanous is a Political Commentator and a former Victorian government minister

Meetings in Kyiv were facilitated by the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations