A memorial plinth will make its home in Kyiv to honour of Gareth Jones, the Welsh journalist from Barry who risked his life to expose the Holodomor famine which killed millions in Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s.
Following a request for funding from the Senedd Cross Party Group Friends of Ukraine, the Welsh Government has agreed to offer a donation of £16,000 to support the commissioning of the plinth in Welsh, English and Ukrainian to mark a street in Kyiv that has already been named in Jones’s honour.
Born in Barry in 1905, Gareth Jones became a freelance journalist whose investigations took him across Europe and the Soviet Union.
In 1933, after walking through the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Jones issued a press release in Berlin that became a highly significant pieces of eyewitness journalism, highlighting the famine affecting millions of people that came to be known as the Holodomor.
Banned from re-entering the Soviet Union, Jones turned his attention to the Far East where he was murdered in 1935 whilst on a fact-finding tour. He was 29 years old.
The project comes with cross-party support in the Senedd and follows a visit to Ukraine last year where a delegation of Senedd Members delivered aid and met with leaders of Kyiv Council to discuss the possibility of erecting the memorial.
The Welsh Government already works with the Welsh Refugee Council and Ukrainian community partners in Wales to annually commemorate Holodomor (translated as ‘death by starvation’) and the critical role Gareth Jones played in exposing this tragedy to the wider world.
Jack Sargeant, Minister for Culture, said the memorial was a fitting tribute to one of Wales’s most courageous journalists:
“Gareth Jones told the truth at a time when powerful forces worked to suppress it. His eyewitness reporting of the Holodomor brought the horror of that famine to an international audience, at great personal cost. This memorial in Kyiv ensures that his extraordinary courage and his connection to Ukraine is acknowledged and remembered.”
It is anticipated the memorial will be ready for unveiling in a civic ceremony in Kyiv in November 2026, the traditional day of remembrance of the Holodomor.
Graham Colley, great-nephew of Gareth Jones, said:
“I very much welcome this initiative which not only recognises the contribution of my Great Uncle, Gareth to exposing one of the last centuries great crimes, the Holodomor. It is also a tribute in these troubling times to his commitment to the highest ethical standards of journalism at a time when the Soviet authorities and collaborative journalists sought to hide the truth of those terrible events.
“It is a fitting Welsh tribute to a true Welsh hero, one who is sadly better known internationally than he is in Wales. I hope this memorial stone will contribute to the growth of relations between the people of Wales and Ukraine.”
Alun Davies MS, Chair of the Cross-Party Group, said:
“We don’t do enough to recognise the contribution Welsh citizens have made to world affairs. Gareth Jones was a unique individual. Whilst some journalists were wined and dined by the Soviet authorities and chose to ignore or deny what was happening in Ukraine, he chose to go and see for himself and he told the world.
“At this time, when Ukraine’s very existence is under attack and parts of the country where the Holodomor had such terrible impact are occupied, this is a way of recognising the vital role of journalists in exposing the truth and showing our solidarity and friendship with Ukraine.”
Jones’s life and journalism have been the subject of significant cultural recognition in recent years, including the 2019 feature film Mr Jones which focused on his investigation and reporting of the Holodomor.
The new Kyiv plinth will join other memorials to Jones, including a trilingual plaque at Aberystwyth University unveiled in 2006, and a plaque placed in the National Library of Ukraine in Kyiv in October 2023.
