Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has warned about the growing threat of a continental war and called on foreign policymakers to prevent the replay of tragedies similar to the Holocaust and WWII.
“The threat of a continental war is greater now that it has ever been before. No one should have any doubt: the aggressor’s ambitions and appetites exceed Ukraine’s size,” the Ukrainian presidential press service quoted Poroshenko as saying at events marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland.
“I am calling on the entire world not to allow the replay of the tragic events. Not only should we remember the innocent victims of the past but we should also think how not to allow the replay of the tragedies similar to the Holocaust and the WWII on the whole,” Poroshenko said.
The president expressed regret that seventy years after the victory over Nazism, into which Ukrainians made a tremendous contribution, as well as forty years after the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, Ukraine has found itself amid “Russian aggression and gross violation of the international law.”
“The Russian Federation, being not only a signatory of the Act, but also one of its proponents, flagrantly violated principles of inviolability of borders, territorial integrity, human rights and freedoms laid down in the given document,” Poroshenko added.
And today, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who defended Ukraine more than seven decades ago left their homes to protect the loved ones and their Homeland from the aggressor.
A quarter of the 6 million Jews exterminated by the Nazis and their allies were Jews coming from Ukraine, Poroshenko said. “The tragedy of Babyn Yar still remains an open wound,” he said.
“Taking into account those killed in the front, we lost about 60% of the prewar Jewish population living on Ukrainian soil,” he said.
“Millions of Ukrainians in the allied armies, the Ukrainian liberation movement, and Soviet partisan groups opposed the Nazi onslaught and then the Holocaust with weapons in their hands,” he said.
“Thousands and thousands of Ukrainians saved Jews on the occupied territories risking their own lives. About 2,500 Ukrainians have been awarded the title of the Righteous Among the Nations, which constitutes one tenth of the overall number of those honored this way. As many as 231 Soviet soldiers fell in the fighting for the liberation of Auschwitz and the populated areas surrounding it, one fifth of them being Ukrainians,” he said.
Poroshenko also mentioned the idea of setting up Ukraine’s permanent display at the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum. “We should collect documents and memorabilia related to the presence of people coming from Ukrainian lands in this camp. I hope we will put this plan into practice in several years, once we start overcoming the economic crisis aggravated by the war,” he said.
