Ukraine’s Minister of Interior Arsen Avakov said that his country should recognize the Armenian genocide in a Facebook post on Sunday.
“The Armenian genocide is not a tragedy of one nation. This is a terrible and, unfortunately, unlearned lesson for all humanity,” Avakov said.
Avakov said that recognition would contribute towards preventing similar crimes from happening in the future. He praised the contribution of Armenians to Ukrainian history, pointing specifically to Serhiy Nigoyan, who was the first civilian killed during the 2014 Maidan protests.
Arsen Avakov was born to an Armenian family on January 2, 1964, in Baku, Soviet Azerbaijan. ‘Avakov’ is the Russified version of the Armenian surname ‘Avagyan’. He moved to Ukraine with his family in 1966.
