Russia 'Blackmailed Ukraine To Ditch EU Pact' - Yulia Tymoshenko Calls For Ukrainians To Take To The Streets

KIEV, Ukraine -- The European Union and Russia traded charges of blackmail on Friday over the future of Ukraine. The Kremlin threatened the country with trade losses worth billions and costing hundreds of thousands of jobs if it signed up to a strategic pact with the European Union, senior Lithuanian officials said. President Vladimir Putin of Russia said the EU was putting pressure on Kiev and organising mass protests against President Viktor Yanukovych. A week before a critical EU summit in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, that was to be capped by the Brussels-Kiev pact, Yanukovych abruptly pulled out of the deal on Thursday, leaving EU policy in shreds and Putin relishing victory in the contest for Ukraine's future. The volte face was a result of Russian blackmail, the Lithuanian president's office said as senior officials in Brussels said Yanukovych was sacrificing the hopes and wishes of most of his countrymen on the altar of Russian money and contracts. Yulia Tymoshenko, the imprisoned former prime minister and arch-rival of Yanukovych, whose release and transfer to Germany has been the central condition for the EU pact, pleaded with the president to reverse his decision. In a letter to Yanukovych from prison, she renounced the release condition and pledged she would stay in jail in Ukraine if Yanukovych relented. Fear of facing Tymoshenko in a 2015 presidential battle is believed to be one of the main reasons for the president's rebuff of the EU. "I give you my word that, if you make a decision to sign the [EU] agreement, on the same day I will appeal to European leaders asking them to sign the agreement without fulfilling all criteria including the part regarding my release. I don't know if they will listen to my appeal but I will do everything possible for the signing of the agreement even as I continue to sit in prison," said Tymoshenko. "This is the only chance for you to survive as a politician," she told Yanukovych. "Because now, when you are killing the agreement you are making the biggest mistake of your life." The thunderbolt from Yanukovych brought pro-European protesters on to the streets of central Kiev before what promises to be a weekend of campaigning climaxing in a large rally on Sunday. Around 2,500 took to the streets waving EU flags on Thursday evening. Organisers expect tens of thousands to join protests on Sunday. Jovita Neliupšiene, foreign policy aide to President Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania, said Yanukovych had called her before announcing he was ditching the EU pact, arguing that the pressure from Moscow was irresistible. Yanukovych and Putin had a secret meeting last week. The Ukrainian and Russian prime ministers then met in Saint Petersburg on Wednesday. "Ukraine could not withstand the economic pressure and blackmail. It was threatened with restricted imports of its goods to Russia, particularly from companies in eastern Ukraine, which accommodates the greater share of its industry and employs hundreds of thousands of people." "Calculations suggest this would lead to billions in losses. These causes behind the decision were specified by President Yanukovych in the telephone conversation with the president earlier this week," Neliupšiene told a Baltic news agency. Eastern Ukraine, traditionally pro-Russian, is also Yanukovych's power base. With Moscow and European capitals locked in rancour and recrimination over Ukraine, Putin let fly at the EU: "We have heard threats from our European partners towards Ukraine, up to and including promoting the holding of mass protests. This is pressure and this is blackmail." With the Ukrainian economy in critical condition, the rebuff to Europe could cost it dearly in terms of EU financial support and the prospects of loans from the IMF. The Vilnius summit was seen as a critical juncture, deciding whether Ukraine would opt for further integration with the EU or see its future in closer ties with Russia. Kiev has been pursuing the trade deal and political association agreement with the EU for the past five years, only to drop it at the last minute. Armenia did the same in September, yielding to Russian pressure and instead joined a Russia-centred Eurasian customs union. "They are not going West. I don't think they are going East. I feel they are going down," said Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, who has campaigned strongly for Ukraine's European option. "That's roughly where we are because of the economic problems." Official reaction in Brussels was one of disappointment, pleading with Yanukoviych to reconsider, and emphasising that no doors were being closed. Privately, however, senior officials were stunned and conceded that the EU's policy towards the post-Soviet states to the east had been set back years. The two EU envoys on the issue – Ireland's Pat Cox, a former European parliament president, and Aleksander Kwaśniewski, a former Polish president – voiced "deep disappointment at the unilateral decision of the Ukrainian government … we appeal to the president in this difficult situation". "The people of Ukraine should be reassured by the leaders of the EU that the door will not be shut on the European hopes and aspirations of Ukraine." The US State Department accused Yanukovych of passing up a "historic opportunity". It hinted at economic and financial consequences for Ukraine, as did Catherine Ashton, the EU's top foreign policy official. "This is a disappointment not just for the EU, but, we believe, for the people of Ukraine," she said. "The signing of the most ambitious agreement the EU has ever offered to a partner country would have sent a clear signal to investors worldwide as well as to international financial institutions that Ukraine is serious about its modernisation pledge and becoming a predictable and reliable interlocutor for international markets". "It would have provided a unique opportunity to reverse the recent discouraging trend of decreasing foreign direct investment in Ukraine and would have given momentum to negotiations on a new standby arrangement with the IMF." Michael Leigh, a former senior EU official and co-architect of the policy, said: "People in Ukraine want their country to become more democratic and more prosperous. This opportunity … may not come again." Michal Baranowski, the Warsaw director of the German Marshall Fund thinktank, said: "Geopolitical competition in the region is back. The EU should be ready for a long game."

Ukraine Risks Financial Meltdown After Break With EU

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine is risking a financial crisis of monumental scale by ditching the EU as it faces a cash crunch before imminent debt repayments, analysts said Friday. Ukraine received warnings from senior EU officials and the United States after it dropped its EU membership bid, European Observer said. U.S. officials cited difficulties Ukraine could face obtaining credit from the International Monetary Fund after it snubbed the EU, EUObserver.com said. Ukraine's ties with the IMF are already fraught over recent mishaps, including a $15 billion line of credit that fell through. Renewed Ukrainian attempts to obtain IMF cash are aimed at securing a line of credit for $10 billion or more to enable Kiev to head off default on loan repayments. Ukraine needs to make regular repayments on more than $60 billion of external debt. Thousands of protesters in Kiev and other Ukrainian streets Friday pushed the argument Ukraine belongs in the EU, not in a Russian sphere. But the question of how Ukraine will make its debt repayments is more pressing than emotional pronouncements about the country's future outside the EU, analysts said. If Ukraine fails to make loan repayments due it will face the risk of default and will be solely at the mercy of Russia for a financial bailout, analysts said. The suspension of EU-Ukraine talks on an association deal -- a step toward full membership -- also means that a European loan, worth about $830 million, is likely to be put on hold, European Observer said. Continuing street protests across Ukraine renewed risks of confrontation between demonstrators and police. EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton said Ukraine's EU membership would have given the country international credibility and prepared it for international capital markets. It would also have helped Ukraine's negotiations with the IMF on a new standby credit arrangement, Ashton said. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki echoed the view that EU association would have reassured international financial institutions about the country's commitment to democratic reform. An EU-Ukraine pact in preparation for EU membership for the country was due to be signed in Vilnius, Lithuania, next week. Analysts said support still exists in Brussels for continuing to give Ukraine a lifeline to discourage it from signing a deal with Russia it could ill afford to reverse. Political and trade links between Russia and Ukraine remain uneasy, mainly over delays in Ukrainian payments for gas. In 2009 Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine in a dispute over prices. The stoppage also affected supplies to EU member countries, causing fuel shortages across Europe in the middle of winter. Protesters opposed to the suspension of links with Europe shouted "President Viktor Yanukovych -- enemy of the country." Opposition critics have accused Yanukovych of treason for going back on an EU deal. Ukraine Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov said the decision was the result of economic pressures. "The decision the government has made is based on economic reasons," he said. "It is of a tactical character and does not change our strategic objectives." Under the EU association deal, Ukraine would have been required to release imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, an arch rival of Yanukovych and consistent critic of Moscow. In a letter released from captivity, Tymoshenko warned Yanukovych "you are making the mistake of your life... You will remain one-on-one with Russia and you will have to live according to her road map. Later Russia will give you a choice: either it will save you from the social and economic collapse at the expense of the loss of independence or will not react at all." EU diplomats interviewed by European media said Ukraine's move did not secure its position within the Russian sphere and made its future more uncertain. Ukrainian opposition says the country is ripe for another revolution, this time driven by social media, especially Twitter.

Tens Of Thousands Rally In Kiev For Closer EU Ties

KIEV, Ukraine -- Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through central Kiev on Sunday to demand that the Ukrainian government reverse course and sign a landmark agreement with the European Union in defiance of Russia. The protest was the biggest Ukraine has seen since the peaceful 2004 Orange Revolution, which overturned a fraudulent presidential election result and brought a Western-leaning government to power. Led by Ukraine's leading opposition figures carrying giant Ukrainian and EU flags, the demonstrators chanted "Ukraine is Europe" and sang the national anthem as they marched toward European Square. An estimated 100,000 people turned out for the rally. "We want to be together with Europe," Volodymyr Mnikh, a 62-year-old retired chemist, said with tears in his eyes. "We want our children to have a future and not to be pressured by Russia." Ukraine's leaders announced suddenly last week that they were pulling out of a free trade and political association deal with the EU to be signed in the coming week, saying the country could not afford to break trade ties with Russia. The Russian government has worked aggressively to derail the EU deal and bring Ukraine into the Moscow-dominated Customs Union. "The EU means Ukraine's development," said demonstrator Andriy Mazeta, a 19-year-old management student. "The Customs Union means Ukraine's destruction. We need to push Russia as far away as possible." Sunday's protest was seen as a test of the strength of the opposition and its ability to nudge President Viktor Yanukovych back in the EU's direction. One key EU demand for signing the deal is the release of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whose imprisonment the West sees as politically driven. Yanukovych only narrowly defeated Tymoshenko in the 2010 presidential election and sees her as a political threat. He comes up for reelection in 2015.

Huge Ukraine Rally Over EU Agreement Delay

KIEV, Ukraine -- More than 100,000 people have gathered in the Ukrainian capital Kiev in defiance of the government's move to delay an association deal with the EU. Opposition leaders joined the protest, said to be the largest since the Orange Revolution in 2004. There are reports of police firing tear gas as protesters tried to break through a cordon around government buildings. A pro-government rally a few miles away attracted about 10,000 people. Ukraine made the decision on the EU deal last week, saying it could not afford to break ties with Moscow. Russia is trying to bring Kiev into its own customs union. Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the EU of blackmailing Ukraine to sign the deal during a summit in Vilnius next week. People arrived at the rally, on European Square, with families and children, many holding banners with slogans like "I want to live in Europe" or "Ukraine is part of Europe". "We want to be together with Europe," Volodymyr Mnikh, a 62-year-old retired chemist, told the Associated Press news agency. "We want our children to have a future and not to be pressured by Russia." Several rallies in Kiev and other cities have been held over the last few days, but Sunday's has been the largest so far. World heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, who leads the Udar movement and attended Friday's rally, was not present. Ukrainian news agency Unian said he had been flying back from the US after celebrating his daughter's birthday but his plane was not allowed to land in Kiev because of weather conditions. On Friday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said the decision not to sign the deal was motivated solely by economics and was "tactical". He said it did not alter Ukraine's overall development strategy. The Ukrainian government says it is now looking into setting up a joint commission to promote ties between Ukraine, Russia and the EU. Ukraine depends on imports of Russian gas, but recently the supplier, Gazprom, complained that Ukraine had fallen behind in payments. Pipelines transiting Ukraine pump Russian gas to many EU member states. In 2009 Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in a dispute about prices, causing fuel shortages across Europe in the middle of winter. Russia has a customs union with two other former Soviet republics - Belarus and Kazakhstan - and has been urging Ukraine to join it. A free trade agreement with the EU would mean Ukraine adopting different trade rules. Kiev's decision on Thursday prompted EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele to cancel a trip to Ukraine. It had been planned for the run-up to the key "Eastern Partnership" summit between the EU and several ex-Soviet states, which will be held in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 28 and 29 November.

Ukraine Police Clash With Pro-EU Protesters - Fire Tear Gas On Protesters

KIEV, Ukraine -- Thousands of pro-European Union protesters have clashed with police during a rally in Ukrainian capital of Kiev. Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through Kiev on Sunday to demand the government reverse course and sign a landmark agreement with the EU. However, some protesters tried to storm government buildings and police responded by using tear gas and batons against the demonstrators. The protest was the biggest the country has seen since the peaceful 2004 Orange Revolution, which overturned a fraudulent presidential election result and brought a Western-leaning government to power. Ukrainian and EU flag-carrying demonstrators shouted "Ukraine is Europe" and sang the national anthem as they marched towards Independence Square. The protest was led by Ukraine's top opposition figures, who called for the rallies to continue until President Viktor Yanukovych agreed to sign the free trade and political association deal with the EU at a summit on Friday. Pro-Europe supporter Anton Vashkevich said the protesters wanted to say that the government and President did not represent the opinion of the whole country. What they think does not express the thoughts of the majority of the population," Vashkevich said. "There is no alternative to the European Union." Ukraine's leaders announced suddenly last week that they were pulling out of the EU agreement because they said the country could not afford to break trade ties with Russia. The Russian government has worked aggressively to derail the EU deal and bring Ukraine into the Moscow-dominated Customs Union. One key EU demand for signing the deal was the release of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whose imprisonment the West sees as politically driven. Tymoshenko's daughter Eugenia was one of those attending Sunday's protest march. Elsewhere in Kiev, thousands of Yanukovych supporters held their own rally on Sunday. Those attending the march came to voice their support for the government's decision to halt the signing of the EU agreement. One government supporter, Nina Gorkava, said that the EU was not offering Ukrainians anything and was just putting a heavy burden on them. "Why should we follow their rules? If we voted for independence of our country we should be really independent," she said. The EU has said that Yanukovych is still welcome to attend the summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Thursday and Friday, during which the two sides had intended to sign the trade agreement.

Ukraine Pivots To Russia With Last-Minute Freeze Of EU Plan

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine opted to seek stronger ties with Russia, cutting off preparations for a European Union trade agreement a week before its scheduled signing would have capped almost six years of negotiations. President Viktor Yanukovych’s government will focus on reviving trade with Russia and other former Soviet republics, it said yesterday. The decision is probably final, said Linas Linkevicius, the foreign minister of Lithuania, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency. Postponing the signature of the agreement “is not realistic,” he said by phone. The EU and Russia, buyers of about a quarter of Ukrainian exports each, are jostling over relations with the country of 45 million people that’s an essential transit route for east-west energy shipments. The second-most populous ex-Soviet country is also crucial to the ambition of Russian President Vladimir Putin to set up a trading area to emulate the Brussels-centered bloc. “There’s always a possibility to go back to negotiations but it will be more difficult to do so in the future,” Joerg Forbrig, senior program officer for Central and Eastern Europe at the Berlin bureau of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said by phone yesterday. “The momentum was there and this has been lost now. The political momentum has been lost and it will be hard to recreate this.” The cost to insure Ukrainian debt against non-payment for five years with credit-default swaps rose 78 basis points, or 0.78 percentage point, to 1,003, the third-highest in the world after Argentina and Venezuela, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The yield on the Ukrainian dollar bond due 2023 rose 8 basis points to 9.905 percent at 12:24 p.m. in Kiev. The decision exposed a growing divide in the country over economic and political priorities. In a reflection of mounting tensions, thousands of protesters took to the streets in near-freezing temperatures in Kiev last night over the government’s move, with opposition parties calling on Ukrainians to march in the capital on Nov. 24 to show their support for the EU agreement. Backing for membership of the 28-nation bloc is at 58 percent, according to a poll of 1,000 people this month by researcher IFAK Institut GmbH & Co. It gave no margin of error. Opposition leaders including world heavyweight boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko spoke and bands performed songs at the rally in Kiev last night, which was attended by about 2,000 people, private television broadcaster Channel 5 reported. People plan to gather for another rally tonight. Today marks the ninth anniversary of the start of the Orange Revolution, which was led by jailed ex-Premier Yulia Tymoshenko and helped overturn Yanukovych’s presidential victory in 2004. “The European bloc has been facing a rival in Russia all along this process,” Lilit Gevorgyan, an analyst at IHS Global Insight in London, said by e-mail. “From a geopolitical perspective, any delay of the agreement with Ukraine will be a serious setback for the EU’s diplomacy.” European governments had urged Ukraine to sign association and free-trade agreements at a Nov. 28-29 summit in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Russia, which supplies 60 percent of Ukraine’s natural gas, threatened trade measures if the deal went ahead, offering membership of its customs union as an alternative. The U.S. is “disappointed” in the decision, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters yesterday. “We believe there was ample time to resolve all remaining obstacles to signing the association agreement in Vilnius with sufficient effort and commitment,” Psaki said. While Yanukovych reiterated yesterday that his country’s goal is European integration, lawmakers repeatedly failed to pass a bill to allow Tymoshenko to travel abroad for medical treatment, a key EU condition for the trade accord to proceed as the bloc deems her imprisonment a case of selective justice. The Ukrainian leader “can take leadership and take a decision at any time -- but really, it’s maybe more theoretical,” Linkevicius said in a telephone interview yesterday. “Time is not on our side due to many reasons. To postpone a decision, I’m afraid, could mean no decision at all, no signature at all.” If EU officials sounded subdued, the Russian reaction was more exuberant. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters in Moscow that the decision was the demonstration of a “desire to improve and develop economic cooperation.” Putin earlier denied opposing Ukraine’s trade deal, though he said trilateral talks must come before a decision is made, the Interfax news service reported. Ukraine’s motivation for suspending preparations for the EU treaty was “purely economic,” with the government making the “only possible” choice in the situation, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told lawmakers in Kiev today. A decline in trade with Russia has led to falling industrial production, “pushing Ukraine to the edge of huge social and economic troubles,” he said. Speaking over chants of “Shame!” by opposition lawmakers, who attempted to keep him from speaking, Azarov said a Nov. 20 letter from the International Monetary Fund tipped the balance for Ukraine. “The last straw that broke the camel’s back was the IMF’s position,” Azarov said. “They offered to provide us with a loan equal to what we have to repay them. At the same time they demanded to double utility prices, freeze salaries, and cut budget spending.” Ukraine entered its third recession since 2008 in the second quarter as demand for its steel exports shriveled, while reserves have plummeted. Joining Russia’s customs union would shrink its current-account gap by cutting energy costs. The reasons may have been more complex, according to former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, one of the EU’s main negotiators with Ukraine. While economic difficulties contributed to yesterday’s decision, “unprecedented pressure” from Russia also played a part, he said. “Russians tapped the whole arsenal of possibilities they have in Ukraine,” he told Poland’s TVN24. “All Ukrainian presidents will want to balance between their big eastern neighbor and the West.” Yanukovych told his Lithuanian counterpart Dalia Grybauskaite that Russia threatened to suspend imports from industries in eastern Ukraine, potentially causing massive losses and affecting hundreds of thousands people, the Baltic News Service reported, citing Grybauskaite’s adviser, Jovita Neliupsiene. Similar accusations were leveled at the EU in Moscow, where Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this week it was the trading bloc that put Ukraine under “brazen pressure” to choose between Russia and the 28-member bloc. Kwasniewski and his co-negotiator Pat Cox, a former head of the European Parliament, urged EU leaders to reassure Ukrainians that “the door will not be shut,” according to an e-mailed statement yesterday. They also recommended to “maintain active vigilance” over Tymoshenko’s conditions. Yanukovych, whose 2004 victory in a presidential ballot was overturned amid the Orange Revolution that Tymoshenko helped lead, has accused her of involvement in crimes including a murder, claims she denies. He defeated Tymoshenko to become president in 2010 after serving two stints as premier. “Yanukovych clearly fears releasing Tymoshenko” before presidential elections in 2015, Luis Costa, an emerging-markets strategist at Citigroup Inc. in London, said by e-mail. “It’s time to partially take profits in Ukrainian bonds for those who bought at the lows a couple of months ago.” That means the EU’s ambitions to cement Ukraine’s place in its orbit fell victim to the trading bloc’s maneuvering, said Alexei Pushkov, head of the foreign-affairs committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament. Ukraine halting preparations to sign the pact is “logical,” with the Tymoshenko demand representing “a mine the EU laid itself,” he said. “Setting Tymoshenko free would have given the EU a chance to work against Yanukovych in 2015 elections, and ‘‘for a political leader, this is suicide,’’ he said by phone. Yanukovych trails Klitschko in polls for the presidency. Opposition parties are organizing a demonstration for Nov. 24 to back stronger EU ties. Regardless of the political backdrop, Ukraine’s actions may be a negotiating ploy to help garner financial aid, according to Liza Ermolenko, an emerging-markets analyst at London-based Capital Economics Ltd. ‘‘There have been some suggestions in the media that policy makers are just trying to raise the stakes,’’ she said by e-mail. ‘‘The key in all this is that until the summit next week there’s not much point trying to guess what Ukraine is going to do.’’ Still, time may be running out. EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule canceled a planned trip to Kiev yesterday, the DPA news service reported, citing his office. Yesterday’s decision ‘‘puts a large question mark over the general direction of Ukraine’s foreign policy,” Tatiana Orlov an economist in London, said

Holodomor: Memories Of Ukraine's Silent Massacre

KIEV, Ukraine -- Eighty years ago, millions of Ukrainians died in a famine that many label a genocide by the Soviet regime of Joseph Stalin. As Ukraine prepares to embark on its annual memorial events, the memories of the massacre are undimmed for many. Nina Karpenko, an energetic 87-year-old, demonstrates what it took to survive Ukraine's Stalin-era famine, known as the Holodomor, or "death by hunger". Some cheap cornmeal, wheat chaff, dried nettle leaves and other weeds - this was the essence of life during the horrific winter and early spring of 1932-33 in Ukraine. As Ms Karpenko tells her story, she kneads the ingredients into a dull green mass, adding water and a little salt, which she then fashions into a patty. She calls it bread, though it barely fits this description. Then she spreads wax shavings on a pan to keep the patty from sticking and burning, and places it in an oven. Ms Karpenko's father died early on. His legs swelled up and he expired when trying to consume a small amount of food - a common occurrence among those close to starvation. Her mother walked 15km (9 miles) to a nearby town to see if she could obtain something to eat for Ms Karpenko and her brother and sister. She exchanged her earrings and a gold cross she wore around her neck for about 2kg (4.4 lbs) of flour. Ms Karpenko takes the bread from the oven when it is ready. It is tough and tastes like grass. But thanks to this weed loaf, and a horsehide that her mother cut into pieces and boiled for soup, the Karpenko family managed to survive until the spring, when they could forage in the nearby forest. Others in their village, Matskivtsi, in central Ukraine, were not as fortunate. "There was a deathly silence," she says. "Because people weren't even conscious. They didn't want to speak or to look at anything." "They thought today that person died, and tomorrow it will be me. Everyone just thought of death." Ukrainians mark a Holodomor Remembrance Day every year on the fourth Saturday of November. Some historians, like Yale University's Timothy Snyder, who has done extensive research in Ukraine, place the number of dead at roughly 3.3 million. Others say the number was much higher. Whatever the actual figure, it is a trauma that has left a deep and lasting wound among this nation of 45 million. Entire villages were wiped out, and in some regions the death rate reached one-third. The Ukrainian countryside, home of the "black earth", some of the most fertile land in the world, was reduced to a silent wasteland. Cities and roads were littered with the corpses of those who left their villages in search of food, but perished along the way. There were widespread reports of cannibalism. Ms Karpenko says that when school resumed the following autumn, two thirds of the seats were empty. But the pain of the Holodomor comes not only from the unfathomable number of dead. Many people believe the causes were man-made and intentional. They say that Joseph Stalin wanted to starve into submission the rebellious Ukrainian peasantry and force them into collective farms. The Kremlin requisitioned more grain than farmers could provide. When they resisted, brigades of Communist Party activists swept through the villages and took everything that was edible. "The brigades took all the wheat, barley - everything - so we had nothing left," says Ms Karpenko. Even beans that people had set aside just in case. "The brigades crawled everywhere and took everything. People had nothing left to do but die." As the hunger mounted, Soviet authorities took extra measures, such as closing off Ukraine's borders, so that peasants could not travel abroad and obtain food. This amounted to a death sentence, experts say. "The government did everything it could to prevent peasants from entering other regions and looking for bread," says Oleksandra Monetova, from Kiev's Holodomor Memorial Museum. "The officials' intentions were clear. To me it's a genocide. I have no doubt." But for others, the question is still open. Russia in particular objects to the genocide label, calling it a "nationalistic interpretation" of the famine. Kremlin officials insist that, while the Holodomor was a tragedy, it was not intentional, and other regions in the Soviet Union suffered at that time. Kiev and Moscow have clashed over the issue in the past. But Ukraine's present leader Viktor Yanukovych echoes the Kremlin line, saying it was "incorrect and unjust" to consider the Holodomor "the genocide of a certain people". Mr Yanukovych's government still takes care to commemorate fully the destruction that the famine wrought. This year's Remembrance Day will feature a number of different ceremonies and prayer services, as well as the world premier of a Holodomor opera, Red Earth Hunger, by Virko Baley. Mr Baley, an American composer who was born in Ukraine, supports efforts to have the Holodomor recognised internationally as genocide. "You have to admit that it was done, if you want to have any kind of human progress," he says. "You can't wrap it up and say that it wasn't."