Russia issued a DVD and a thick book of historical documents on Wednesday to dispute claims that the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s amounted to genocide.
Russian archivists and historians pressed the Kremlin's case that the Stalin-era famine — which killed millions of people — was a common tragedy across Soviet farmlands, countering efforts by Ukraine's pro-Western president to convince the world that Ukrainians were targeted for starvation.
"Not a single document exists that even indirectly shows that the strategy and tactics chosen for Ukraine differed from those applied to other regions, not to mention tactics or strategy with the aim of genocide," said Vladimir Kozlov, head of Russia's Federal Archive Agency.
If you're not clear on the Russian defense, the Russians are saying that they couldn't possibly be guilty of trying to deliberately kill off Ukrainians because the Russians were also trying to kill lots of other nationalities, too, in order to extract resources from the countryside to industrialize.
Nothing personal, Ukrainians. It was just business.
