Famine in Ukraine

Holodomor Голодомор
Starved peasants on a street in Kharkiv, 1933
Country	Soviet Union
Location	Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
Period	1932–1933
Total deaths	2.4 million to 12 million
Observations	Considered genocide by 16 countries Considered as a criminal act of the Stalinist regime by 6 countries Considered a tragedy or crime against humanity by 5 international organizations
Relief	Foreign relief rejected by the State. Respectively 176,200 and 325,000 tons of grains provided by the State as food and seed aids between February and July 1933.

The Holodomor (Ukrainian: Голодомо́р); derived from морити голодом, "to kill by starvation"), also known as the Terror-Famine and Famine-Genocide in Ukraine, and—before the widespread use of the term "Holodomor," and sometimes currently—also referred to as the Great Famine, and The Ukrainian Genocide of 1932–33 was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 that killed an officially estimated 7 million to 10 million people. It was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.

During the Holodomor millions of inhabitants of Ukraine, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine. Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by Ukraine and 15 other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government.

Early estimates of the death toll by scholars and government officials varied greatly; anywhere from 1.8 to 12 million ethnic Ukrainians were said to have perished as a result of the famine. Recent research has since narrowed the estimates to between 2.4 and 7.5 million. The exact number of deaths is hard to determine, due to a lack of records, but the number increases significantly when the deaths in heavily Ukrainian-populated Kuban are included. Older estimates are still often cited in political commentary. According to the findings of the Court of Appeal of Kiev in 2010, the demographic losses due to the famine amounted to 10 million, with 3.9 million direct famine deaths, and a further 6.1 million birth deficit.

Some scholars believe that the famine was planned by Joseph Stalin to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement. Using Holodomor in reference to the famine emphasises its man-made aspects, arguing that actions such as rejection of outside aid, confiscation of all household foodstuffs, and restriction of population movement confer intent, defining the famine as genocide; the loss of life has been compared to that of the Holocaust. The causes are still a subject of academic debate, and some historians dispute its characterization as a genocide.