Croatia's parliament voted on Wednesday to recognize the Holodomor as genocide. The term refers to the deaths of millions of people in Ukraine in the 1930s under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. 

His regime artificially created a famine that affected the population of Soviet Ukraine, the North Caucasus, and the area around the lower reaches of the Volga River between 1932 and 1933. 

It is estimated that up to 9 million people died as a result of executions, deportations and starvation during the Holodomor. 

The hardest hit was Ukraine, as the most fertile agricultural area of the Soviet Union. 

With the approved statement, the Croatian Parliament said it recognizes the Holodomor as genocide against the Ukrainian people. 

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, thanked Croatia for this action. 

"The world will never accept the crimes of the Kremlin - neither past nor present," Zelensky wrote on Twitter. 

Ukraine's Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, also expressed gratitude to Croatia, saying that "global recognition of the Holodomor genocide" continues to grow rapidly. 

He added that 27 countries recognize the famine as genocide. 

The victims of the Holodomor are commemorated in Ukraine and around the world every year on the fourth Saturday of November.

(Source: Radio Free Europe)