"Lawyers are often accused of being overly fact-focused, demanding irrefutable evidence before admitting anything. The crime of genocide, on the one hand, does not require record-setting numbers to be recognized as such - there are no minimum or maximum numbers stipulated by conventions or laws for recognizing an act as such. But the horrific nature of this crime leaves no room for doubt - these numbers are shocking.

About 4 million Ukrainians became victims of the Holodomor. However, 90 years later, this fact is not enough for full international recognition of this crime as genocide.

And to understand the aspirations and efforts of Ukrainians around the world to achieve this goal, we need to understand what this crime means for us as a nation.

I come from western Ukraine, and my family did not experience the horrors of the Holodomor. But I remember well how many years ago, when I first observed the national minute of silence, I stood with tears in my eyes, feeling empathy and pain with the victims of this crime. 

And if we name the things that unite Ukrainians as a nation, love of freedom and the memory of the Holodomor will be among the most important.

Collective memory is a strange phenomenon. Historical mythology and distorted worldview largely explain Russia's aggression. Instead, the heroic resistance of Ukrainians - the Armed Forces, volunteers, and all those involved - is based, among other things, on the pain of having experienced a horrific crime when millions of people were sacrificed by Stalin and his regime.

This pain has not paralyzed us: it gives us the strength to fight, not to retreat and to confront the nuclear country in the biggest war in many decades. And it does not allow us to forget the memory of those who fell victim. And it demands that we seek international recognition that the Holodomor was the most horrific of crimes, the genocide.

This is part of our common struggle for justice, along with respect for our territorial integrity and the right to determine how we want to live.

Unfortunately, for many decades, we have been denied this justice: first in recognizing the fact of the Holodomor, and later in recognizing that it was genocide. But the voices – I'll name two, and these will be foreign voices, about what the Soviet terrorist regime's actions in Ukraine were, – were heard at the same time as the events were happening.

Yet in 1934, the American congressman and anti-communist Hamilton Fish introduced a resolution in Congress recognizing the fact that millions of Ukrainians were killed by the Soviet government. It was not supported against the backdrop of the warming policy with Moscow promoted by the Roosevelt administration. And Gareth Jones's reports were not perceived properly, due to optimistic messages from Pulitzer Prize winner and Soviet client Walter Duranty.

And this situation, supported by many years of Soviet and Russian propaganda, creates a sense of injustice that makes Ukrainian politicians, lawyers, and public figures demand from the world what would be justice in this case: RECOGNIZE THE HOLODOMOR AS GENOCIDE.

Obviously, there are many obstacles to recognizing the Holodomor as a crime of genocide – political, historical, and legal. However, many of these questions were answered long ago.

Soon, on December 9, we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention against Genocide. Its co-author and creator of the concept of the crime of genocide, Rafal Lemkin, is a graduate of my alma mater, Lviv University. 

A fugitive from the Nazi regime and a thorough researcher of its crimes, in the thirties he also studied the legal system of the USSR and its criminal law. And there is hardly a more authoritative voice to establish whether the Holodomor was genocide.

In 1953, he delivered a report to the Ukrainian diaspora in New York, the very title of which was peremptory: "Soviet Genocide in Ukraine." "...the prong of the Soviet attack was aimed at the farmers, the keepers of traditions, folklore and music, the national language and literature, and the national spirit of Ukraine," Lemkin said of the Holodomor.

For Lemkin, not only the Holodomor but the entire policy of the Soviet government aimed at destroying the identity of Ukrainians was genocide. And in this context, we can talk about the genocidal practices of the Russian tsarist, Soviet, and Putin authorities for three centuries: which began in Baturyn, brought the terrible tragedy of the Holodomor, repeated in Bucha, and continues in Bakhmut and many other cities and villages of Ukraine.

Unfortunately, Lemkin's concepts were not fully implemented in the Convention against Genocide. And as an international lawyer, I recognize how difficult it will be to legally qualify the crimes committed during the Russian aggression as genocide.

However, the Holodomor, which took place 15 years before the adoption of this Convention, cannot be viewed through the prism of its wording, especially when it comes to political recognition. Lemkin himself wrote that this term refers to "an ancient practice in a modern form," citing many examples from antiquity to the twentieth century.

After all, isn't it too cynical to interpret concepts in a broader perspective exclusively in the way they are officially enshrined? Isn't this practice dangerous for societies based on the rule of law? Imagine how happy tyrannies and autocracies would be if justice, truth, and democracy meant only what they wanted to write into their own laws.

Justice is not a purely legal, political or moral category. And recognizing the Holodomor as genocide is a step towards honoring the memory of the victims of this crime and general justice for Ukrainians.

The victims of the Holodomor were killed not only because of their nationality, language, or faith, but also because of their love of freedom, their desire to protect private property, and their freedom of choice. That is, because of the values that underlie European civilization and the EU.

For many Ukrainians, Denmark is the best example of what the idea of Europe is and should be. People in Ukraine see and appreciate how unequivocally you have supported us and your contribution to our struggle - from F16 fighter jets to clean water for the residents of frontline Mykolaiv.

The latter is especially symbolic in the context of the Holodomor.

Therefore, on behalf of the legal community of Ukraine, as Director of the Dnistriansky Center and Vice President of the Ukrainian Bar Association, I appeal to our Danish friends to make every effort to establish justice for the victims of the Holodomor by recognizing it as genocide. This is something that both our nations need, as parts of a single family, as nations that rely on international law.

And I would like to quote Hannah Arendt, a prominent researcher of genocide, who wrote that "If genocide is a non-fictional possibility for the future, then no people on earth... can be completely sure of their existence without the help and protection of international law."

But where international law fails to provide answers, and the responsibility for this lies with people of my profession, the states and societies must clearly provide them on their own.

And recognizing the Holodomor as genocide is such an answer.

A well-known Ukrainian song that appeared during the war has words that can often be seen on the patches of our military at the front: "If the gods allow it, I will kill all the gods." As a Catholic, I interpret this exclusively as an allegory of pagan gods. I believe that Themis, who is the goddess of justice, still has a chance. 

Unless we call things by their true names – the Holodomor is genocide – this crime will continue, and the Russian aggression will continue even when the ceasefire is lifted.

So let's take this important step for the sake of the memory of the victims, justice for them and for us.

Glory to Ukraine!"