A plinth will be installed in Kyiv to commemorate Gareth Jones, the reporter from Barry who helped expose genocide in Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union during the 1930s.
Jack Sargeant, minister for culture, said: “Gareth Jones told the truth at a time when powerful forces worked to suppress it.
“His eyewitness reporting 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.”
In 1933, after walking through the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Mr Jones issued a press release in Berlin highlighting the famine affecting millions of people that came to be known as the Holodomor.
The memorial, supported by the Senedd’s Cross-Party Group Friends of Ukraine, has been offered a donation of £16,000 by the Welsh Government.
Graham Colley, Mr Jones’ great-nephew, 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.”
The memorial is expected to be unveiled in November 2026.
Mr Jones’ story was also told in the 2019 feature film Mr Jones.
