In Ukraine, Russia is trying to freeze us into submission or death. It will fail | Andriy Yermak

Mass starvation killed millions in the Holodomor 90 years ago. Now Russia has again chosen the path of terror

• Andriy Yermak is head of the Ukrainian presidential office

The Holodomor is one of the most terrifying words ever coined: no movie or book can convey its horrors. Have you ever tried to imagine mass starvation? Millions of slow, torturous, painful deaths. It's difficult even to conceive of it - but it's there in the historical record.

Picture it: people cling to life with all their dwindling might. They eat grass, leather boots, tree bark. They mix orach with pounded corn cobs. They grind millet husks with weeds, just to last a day longer. The foods are hardly chewable, and the human body cannot digest them, so people have constant stomach aches. They make the legs swell and the skin crack. Bodies lie in the streets. Some are missing flesh. Mothers lose their senses seeing their kids die.