The European Union has recognised the Holodomor – the famine that hit Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933 – as a crime against humanity and the Ukrainian people.

In a resolution that commemorates the 75th anniversary of the tragic events, EU parliamentarians said the famine was “planned by Stalin's regime in order to force through the Soviet Union's policy of collectivisation of agriculture against the will of the rural population in Ukraine”.

The EU strongly condemned the acts by Soviet authorities as “an appalling crime against the Ukrainian people, and against humanity,” and expressed sympathy to those who suffered for the famine and their relatives.

The resolution however stopped short of calling the events of 1932-1933 a genocide of the Ukrainian people – something that officials in Kiev were insisting on.

Moscow has strongly objected to Ukrainian and Western accounts of what happened. It has argued that many people of different nationalities suffered from the famine at the time.