In 1932-33, some five million Ukrainians were starved to death by an artificial famine engineered by Stalin’s genocidal policies. This is the “Holodomor,” the “murder by hunger” that Ukrainians remember and mourn annually on the fourth Saturday in November.
Today, the imperialism of Stalin’s successor drives a relentless invasion that began in 2022 with the expressed aim of eliminating the national identity of the Ukrainian people. Now we see vulgar, small-minded men from the West trying to “make a deal” that would reward the naked aggression of a war criminal. I have no answers, only sorrow.
And, of course, prayer for the victims of the past and the present, and hope for a future in which courage and honor might prevail for a just and lasting peace. I hope and pray for a truly free Ukraine 🇺🇦, and also for the end of Putinism and the realization of “the beautiful Russia” envisioned and proposed by the great Alexei Navalny — who was murdered in a Russian prison camp in 2024, but who speaks more clearly than ever to Russia, to the world, and to history in his beautiful memoir and “prison diaries” published this year.
