Marcy Kaptur: “The people of Ukraine have been struggling to achieve a fair, independent, and strong democracy since the oppressive…”

“The people of Ukraine have been struggling to achieve a fair, independent, and strong democracy since the oppressive Soviet yoke was shed in 1991, but recent events in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporozhia have raised alarm. A seven-foot tall statue of Joseph Stalin, the World War II Communist tyrant of the Soviet Union who was responsible for the Holodomor famine genocide in which millions upon millions of people starved to death, as well as the deaths of millions of Ukrainians, Pols, Russians, and so many others inside that tyranny, has been built outside of the city in front of the Communist Party headquarters. Even worse, Zaporozhia authorities just denied opposition groups the right to assemble to object to the statue's public display. Since World War II, the world has come to know that Joseph Stalin killed over 50 million people inside those borders, and the repressive legions that supported him were responsible for such agony for so many. The elevation of Joseph Stalin with a monument is an affront to those who have fought for freedom around the world. Just as a monument to Adolf Hitler in Germany would be unacceptable, freedom lovers simply cannot stand by silently while a monument to Stalin, the mass murderer of the 20th century, is erected in Ukraine.”