Ninety years on from the Holodomor, Stalin's genocide by artificial famine which resulted in the deaths of millions of Ukrainians in 1932-33, Ukraine again faces the threat of genocide, PACE has declared, urging all governments to help the people of Ukraine "fight off the ongoing genocidal assault against their nation".
Unanimously approving a report by Knut Abraham (Germany, EPP/CD), presented today in the Chamber by Lord Keen (United Kingdom, EC/DA), the Assembly said the methods used and statements made at the highest level in the context of Russia's ongoing full-scale war of aggression again show a desire to "deny the Ukrainian people's very right to exist as an independent nation".
The parliamentarians pointed to the massacres of Bucha and Irpin, the use of powerful weapons in heavily populated areas, the targeting of civilian infrastructure by Russia, the "filtering out" and torture of Ukrainian political and cultural elites, the systematic destruction of the spiritual legacy and cultural heritage of the Ukrainian people, the use of food as a weapon, and the forcible deportation of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children as evidence of this new genocidal threat.
The Assembly called on all Council of Europe member, observer and partner states to "make use of all instruments at their disposal, including under the Genocide Convention, to prevent any further acts of genocide against the Ukrainian people as a national group".
It also invited the ICC Prosecutor to "consider examining the reported allegations of genocide against the Ukrainian people", both generally and regarding the transfer of Ukrainian people.
