Ukraine honors victims of USSR regime, drawing parallels to Russia’s current methods
On the Day of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repressions, Ukrainians honor those who suffered or died under the communist regime of the USSR.
The Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression is a date on which memory of those Ukrainians whose lives were destroyed during repressions of 1930s and other decades in USSR is honored. According to declassified SBU documents, more than 2 million 800 thousand people in Ukraine became victims of the so-called “dekulakization” (when people who were richer than regular workers were forcibly sent to Siberia and their belongings were stolen by the state) between 1935 and 1951. In 1936, 15,717 people were arrested, in 1937 – 159,537, in 1938 – 106,096, and in 1939 – 11,744.
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In 1937, at least 16.500 people were shot in Ukraine. One of the places of execution was Bykivnia Forest near Kyiv. Today it is the most famous burial place for victims of political repression in Ukraine. The memorial to their memory is the Bykivnia graves National Historical and Memorial Reserve.
According to various sources, between 20 and 100 thousand executed victims of communist terror were buried at this “secret special site of Ukrainian SSR NKVD” in 1937-1941.
For several years, bodies of NKVD victims killed in Kyiv torture chambers were brought here. Among them were writers Mykhail Semenko, Maik Yohansen, Veronika Cherniakhivska, artists Mykhailo Boichuk and Mykola Kasperovych, academics Fedir Kozubovsky and Petro Suprunenko, Metropolitan Vasyl Lipkivsky of Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and thousands of other victims.
Since 2014 and during Russia’s large-scale invasion, terror and political persecution have once again become a reality for a huge number of Ukrainians whose cities and villages have been occupied by Russian troops.
Torture, summary executions, forced deportations, filtration camps, mass persecution for political reasons - all of this was brought to Ukraine by Russian troops.
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“Ideological heirs of USSR in Putin’s Russia have once again brought massive political repression to Ukrainian soil,” said Institute of National Remembrance reminds on the Day of Victims of Political Repression.
“Given all that we know about Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, Mariupol, Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression takes on a new meaning for us. At cost of extraordinary efforts and many lives, Ukraine is fighting not only to liberate its land from Russian occupiers and restore its sovereignty. It is fighting to prevent Stalin’s methods of Great Terror from becoming a tool of politics in twenty-first century.”
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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
