As a Member of the Senedd Cross Party Group Friends of Ukraine which called for a memorial in Kyiv for Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, Leader of the Welsh Conservatives Darren Millar MS is delighted that the Welsh Government has agreed to provide funding for the tribute.

In a Written Statement yesterday, Jack Sargeant MS, Minister for Culture, Skills and Social Partnership, announced that the Welsh Government have agreed to offer a donation of £16,000 to establish the memorial to honour the work of Gareth, a Welsh journalist from Barry who reported on the Holodomor (Soviet Ukrainian famine, 1932-1933), the tensions in Europe in the mid-1930s and the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany.

His exposé on the famine, was based on his own eyewitness testimony after travelling in the region and revealed the scale and horror of the Holodomor to an international audience.

He was almost alone in reporting on starvation in both Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine and did so anonymously in The Times in 1931. His diaries describe in some detail his visits to the Soviet Union between 1931 and 1933, especially his travels there, the people whom he meets and graphic accounts of the conditions of the Holodomor, the severe famine which accounted for between four and six million deaths in Soviet Ukraine

Welcoming yesterday's commitment from the Welsh Government, Darren said:

"This is fantastic news and something we in the Senedd Cross Party Group Friends of Ukraine have pushed hard for.

"The funding will enable a Welsh slate trilingual plinth to be erected in Kyiv to honour the incredible work that Gareth carried out. 

"In April last year, I was part of a delegation of Senedd Members who visited Ukraine to honour Gareth Jones (1905 –1935), when we discussed with the leaders of Kyiv Council the possibility of erecting this trilingual plinth in Welsh, English and Ukrainian to mark a street which has been named after Gareth. 

"I am therefore delighted to see our hopes being realised, and I very much look forward to returning to Ukraine at some point in the future and visiting the Gareth Jones memorial.

"In the meantime, the Cross Party Group will continue working hard to promote support for links between Wales and Ukraine."