On April 10, 2018 at Stanford University American journalist and writer Anne Applebaum presented her book on the Holodomor in Ukraine “Stalin's War on Ukraine. Red Famine”. She is also known for her publications, including in the Washington Post, about communism and civil society in Eastern Europe, and, above all, for the books "Gulag: A History", for which she received the Pulitzer Prize in 2004, and "Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe".
The speaker was presented by Stanford University Professor Norman Neimark, a well-known American expert on genocide, including the Holodomor in Ukraine of 1932-1933. Taking this opportunity, the Consul of Ukraine in San Francisco Alexander Krotenko discussed with the Professor the organizational issues of holding at the Stanford University in November 2018 of the Symposium dedicated to the 85th Anniversary of the Holodomor in Ukraine.
Anne Applebaum briefly outlined the important elements of the tragic pages of Ukrainian history. At the same time, she held a parallel between Russian communist aggression against the Ukrainian people not only in 1932-1933, which was in form of the deliberate man-made famine, but also during the events of the Ukrainian Revolution and the armed resistance of the Ukrainian People's Republic against the Russian Bolshevik aggression of 1917-1920.
In addition, the speaker directly designs the aggressive policy of the Stalinist Soviet regime against the Ukrainian national movements and intellectuals who fought for Ukraine's independence to the present times.
In her opinion, President of Russia V. Putin is conducting a similar to J. Stalin's aggressive policy towards Ukraine. In the free and democratic development of our state both of them saw, accordingly, an immediate threat to the existence of the then Soviet Union, and the imperial ambitions of nowadays Russia.
At the end of the event, the Consul of Ukraine expressed Anne Applebaum gratitude for the objective coverage of the tragic pages of Ukrainian history and the dissemination of information about the Russian aggression against Ukraine, which has repeatedly occurred in the past centuries. The speaker also expressed confidence that eventually the West would recognize the Holodomor in Ukraine of 1932-1933 as the genocide of the Ukrainian people.