GLEN SPEY, NY — Nadia Rajsz, Sullivan County legislator and the daughter of Ukrainian emigrants, addressed those who braved a fierce wind and plummeting temperatures at the Lumberland Town Hall on February 24. “I am grateful for all those attending this vigil for Ukraine. It has been an entire year since we last gathered here for a rally at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since then, thousands of men, women and children have died, been tortured, raped and abducted or trafficked. It is truly a genocide. Ninety years ago, Stalin did something similar, using food as a weapon forcibly starving over 10 million people in Ukraine.”

Rajsz was referring to the Holodomor—murder by starvation. Less than 20 years after Ukraine was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1932, the Communist regime of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin embarked on a campaign to break the resistance of the Ukrainian people.

Its plan: to engineer and brutally enforce a man-made famine, and starve Ukrainians into submission. The result: in the land called the Breadbasket of Europe, millions of men, women and children starved to death.  

Today, millions of Ukrainians have been displaced and have left their homes, husbands and families behind. Many have taken these asylum seekers in and have given them a safe place to live, especially Poland and the United States, as well as other countries. Several of the attendees at the vigil have found refuge in the Glen Spey area.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has verified a total of 8,006 civilian deaths during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as of February 15, 2023. Of them, 487 were children. Furthermore, 13,287 people were reported to have been injured. However, OHCHR specifies that the real numbers could be higher.

“As for the children Russia allows to remain in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk, local puppet authorities are already reportedly compiling lists of children to join the war when they become of age, “ said Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), in his statement at a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. The OSCE is the world’s largest regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization.

“Children born in 2005 and 2006 would now already be subject to compulsory military registration,” he continued. “This advance planning to use Ukraine’s children as cannon fodder for Russia’s war is—I have no other words—it’s just plain evil. It would also be a violation of the laws of war for Russia to conscript citizens of Ukraine from the areas Russia occupies.”

Rajsz read from a statement issued by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. “For 12 months the brave Ukrainian men and women have been standing on the front lines of democracy, defending all of Europe from Russia’s advancing tyranny. The toll has been staggering for Ukraine—thousands have been killed, over 6.5 million have fled to the safety of other countries, eight million are internally displaced within the borders of Ukraine, and thousands of Ukrainian children have been stolen from their families and trafficked into Russia. Make no mistake, Russia is committing genocide, brazenly and in full view of the world.”

Weeks into the war, on April 1, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded in an interview when asked how he believed this war would end. Said he, “Only with our victory. A victory of truth means a victory for Ukraine and Ukrainians.”

Concluded Rajsz, “We cannot forget what is happening in Ukraine today, and must continue providing military equipment and humanitarian aid. If Ukraine fails to defend itself against Putin and his Russian cronies, other European countries will be in jeopardy for the same fate. Please continue to support Ukraine; it is fighting for democracy for the world.”

The rally ended with a resounding “Slava Ukraini! Glory to Ukraine!”

[Editor's note:  The headline on this story was changed on March 11 to a direct quote from the article.]