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 The occupying court in Simferopol has extended the term of illegal arrest of Ekrem Krosh, Ayder Asanov, Refat Seidametov, Osman Abdurazakov, Leman Zekiryayev and Khalil Mambetov until June 23 – they are charged with allegedly participating in a “terrorist organization”.

 Political prisoner Iryna Danilovych went on a dry hunger strike, as the occupying administration of the detention center does not provide her with the necessary medical care: https://cutt.ly/p4G1RM

 In Bakhchisarai, the occupying security forces organized an illegal search in the house of the Kurultai delegate Mustafa Mustafayev: https://cutt.ly/74GMQvn

 The occupying court rejected Stanislav Stetsenko’s appeal and approved a criminal sentence of 12 years in prison – the political prisoner was accused of alleged “high treason”.

 In Sevastopol, on Lenin Street, 2, a beautiful “bavovna” blossomed – the windows of the occupying administration of the city and the reception of the caterer were shattered by a drone strike.

 According to the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense, the occupying leadership has begun to hastily evacuate families from the peninsula and sell property, but everyone is told that “the special operation is going according to plan”.

Militarization of the Crimean Peninsula

 The airport in Simferopol has been closed to civilian aviation since February 24, 2022.

 In the occupied Crimea, the “yellow level” of the terrorist threat continues indefinitely: in Sevastopol, Armyansk, Dzhankoy, Krasnoperekopsk, Kerch, as well as Dzhankoy, Krasnoperekopsk and Leninsky districts.

 Residents of the occupied Crimea continue to record the activity of Russian fighter jets every day, which are likely to fire missiles at Ukrainian cities.

 The occupiers have lined the coast of the occupied peninsula with anti-tank structures – concrete tetrahedrons.

 In Krasnoperekopsk district, the occupiers continue to dig trenches. Also, more announcements about the work on the arrangement of trenches in the temporarily occupied Crimea appear in open sources.

 Residents of the occupied Crimea inform us every day about Russian missile launches from the Black Sea – all the missiles are flying towards Ukrainian cities.

 According to the “Atesh” resistance movement, the occupiers in Sevastopol are installing antennas and devices for listening to civilians.

Criminal mobilization

 As of March 27, 2023, at least 331 Russian army soldiers have already been buried in the occupied Crimea. 224 of them were probably Ukrainian citizens. The number of burials may be higher, as many of them take place without coverage. The information is being supplemented.

 There is information in open sources that the occupiers have started a “population census” in the places of residence of Crimean Tatars to continue issuing summonses. We urge our citizens to avoid illegal service in the aggressor’s army: https://cutt.ly/vVIJLiQ

Propaganda of the occupation administrations and incitement to hatred

 The owner of the “Taigan” safari-park, Zubkov, has once again started stealing animals from the temporarily uncontrolled territories: he boasted that he had illegally taken at least 24 animals to Crimea from zoos in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia.

 The occupiers continue to search for the so-called “saboteurs” who allegedly committed a sabotage on the railroad in the village of Poshtove. For some reason, they are looking for Crimean Tatars, terrorizing them with illegal searches and “warnings”.

 The two traitors found each other: the propagandist Talipov posted a photo with the head of the occupying administration of Yalta, Yanina Pavlenko, and said that she had decided to join the “movement” of harassing our citizens in occupied Crimea.

Publications of the occupying media

 The nighttime drone attack on Dzhankoy caused a great stir: the occupying media published photos of the so-called traces of debris and stories about the allegedly destroyed store, and later about the opening of this store.

 The occupiers called the drone strikes on Dzhankoy “an escalation from the West”, and the drone attack on Odesa “retaliation for Dzhankoy”.

Public sentiment

 Civilian resistance continues: staircase railings are painted blue and yellow, KALUSH songs are played on the street, Ukrainian slogans and wishes for the worst for Putin are written, etc.

 The resistance movement “Crimean Battle Seagulls” distribute posters reminding the occupiers that it is time to flee and giving useful advice to Ukrainian citizens in the occupied Crimea. Also, the “CBSs” continue to intimidate collaborators.

 In the village of Grushivka, Sudak district of the occupied Crimea, unknown citizens hung the state flag of Ukraine on a mobile phone tower.

 We remind our fellow citizens about the chatbot “RAZOM (Together)”  launched by the activists of the “Yellow Ribbon” resistance movement – send information about the occupiers to https://t.me/zhovta_strichka_bot

 The Mission of the President continues to receive inquiries from Ukrainian citizens who want to leave Crimea because they cannot tolerate the occupation and total propaganda. We remind you of our instructions on how to leave the temporarily occupied Crimea: https://cutt.ly/YV8zdBz

 

  We thank the conscious Ukrainian citizens in the occupied Crimea for their prompt reports on the situation on the Crimean Peninsula, in particular on the socio-economic situation, the movement of Russian troops, the movement of resistance to the occupation, etc.

For more information, please send an e-mail to the Information provided Department of the Mission of the President in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea:

[email protected]

 Glory to Ukraine!

The Polish media outlet “Polska Agencja Prasowa” has published an interview with the Permanent Representative Tamila Tasheva on the militarization of the occupied Crimean Peninsula, resistance movements, and Ukraine’s preparations for the integration of the liberated Crimea.

“We will need about 50 thousand specialists for the sociopolitical sphere, the judiciary, law enforcement and other state bodies. In particular, it will be necessary to resolve the issue of property acquired by Russians who illegally entered the occupied peninsula and lived there for the last 9 years. This also includes millions of court verdicts issued by the occupation courts. All this needs to be regulated by law”.

Read the full article: https://cutt.ly/J4GdxRv

On March 28 (Tuesday), an exhibition of photographs by Ukrainian reporters who worked in Crimea after the occupation began, covering human rights violations and filming the lives of families of political prisoners, will be opened at the Central Department Store Lutsk – “TSUM ART GALLERY” (1 Voly Avenue, 5th floor). Lutsk is one of the six regional centers of Ukraine where the photo exhibition “Stories from the Occupied Crimea” will be shown.

At 11:00, a press conference will begin, during which speakers will elaborate on the idea of creating the exhibition, the persecution of Crimean Tatars and pro-Ukrainian activists, and the current situation in Crimea. After the press conference, journalists will be invited to see the exhibition “Stories from the occupied Crimea”.

Speakers of the event:

 Tetyana Pechonchyk, Head of the Board of “ZMINA. Human Rights Centre”;

 Alyona Savchuk, one of the authors of the photos, reporter;

 Volodymyr Chekryhin, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the “Crimean Human Rights Group”;

 Petro Vyhivskyi, father of political prisoner Valentyn Vyhivskyi, member of the Board of the “Association of Relatives of Political Prisoners of the Kremlin”;

 Yevhen Bondarenko, the Information provided Department of the Mission of the President in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

From the very beginning of the occupation of Crimea, Russia has been carrying out large-scale repressions. As of today, more than 150 people – most of them Crimean Tatars – have been imprisoned for political reasons, 43 Ukrainian activists have been abducted, 11 of them are missing, and one person remains in custody. The repression is currently ongoing.

For 10 days, residents and guests of Lutsk will be able to see the works of Ukrainian reporters Alina Smutko, Taras Ibragimov and Alyona Savchuk, who documented the lives of Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian activists in Crimea from 2014 to 2019.

Last October, the photo exhibition “Stories from the Occupied Crimea” was presented at the First Parliamentary Summit of the Crimean Platform (Zagreb, Croatia), and in December – during the celebrations on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Mission of the President.

In addition to Lutsk, the photo exhibition “Stories from the Occupied Crimea” was shown in Khmelnytskyi, Kropyvnytskyi, Chernivtsi and Dnipro, and will be held in Lviv.

 

Exactly 9 years ago, on March 27, the UN General Assembly adopted the first resolution supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity. 100 countries voted in favor of the “Resolution on the Territorial Integrity of Ukraine”, and only 11 voted against: Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, North Korea, Nicaragua, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and Russia, of course.

With this significant decision, the UN General Assembly reaffirmed its commitment to the sovereignty, political independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state within its internationally recognized borders. The UN called on the aggressor country to stop from any further actions aimed at violating the borders and national unity of Ukraine.

Even though the world has condemned the attempt to annex the Ukrainian peninsula with the use of weapons, Russia continued its occupation of Crimea, disregarded the rule of law and brought with it total militarization, anti-Ukrainian propaganda, enforced disappearances, criminal prosecutions and massive violations of the rights of citizens, including the indigenous Crimean Tatar people.

In the Resolution, the General Assembly also called on all states not to recognize any changes in the status of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, which eventually became known as the policy of non-recognition of the attempted annexation and is still applied by dozens of states.

After the first resolution, the UN adopted many more: 7 on Russia’s human rights violations in the occupied Crimea, 4 on the militarization of the occupied peninsula. However, the occupier-country did not care about international law and the agreements it had signed, so it again launched an armed attack on the territory of Ukraine – a full-scale invasion.

🇺🇦 It all started in Crimea, and it will end in Crimea. 2023 should be the year of Ukraine’s victory, when together we will stop the war and ensure security throughout the democratic world.

The American media outlet “NBC News” published an article with comments of Permanent Representative Tamila Tasheva, as well as the wife of the illegally imprisoned First Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people Nariman Dzhelal Leviza.

The publication is dedicated to the criminal prosecutions and illegal sentences against representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people on the occupied peninsula, in particular, the falsified case against Dzhelal, who was imprisoned by the occupation court for 17 years.

Read the full article: https://cutt.ly/I4FZ42j

The Permanent Representative Tamila Tasheva and her Deputy Denys Chystikov met at the Mission of the President Office with Mufti of the Religious Administration of Muslims of Ukraine “Ummah” Murat Suleymanov, Chairman of the Board of the RAMU “Ummah” Dilyaver Saidakhmetov and President of the Congress of Muslims of Ukraine Seyran Arifov.

The distinguished guests visited the Mission of the President on the occasion of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began at sunset on March 22.

Ms. Tasheva spoke about the results of her business trip to Southeast Asia, where she visited Malaysia and Indonesia as a member of the Ukrainian delegation. In particular, the Permanent Representative shared information about visits to religious organizations in this region, where the population also professes Islam, as does the largest Muslim community in Ukraine – the Crimean Tatars. This factor became a bridge to building communication with our partners from the Global South.

“Ukrainian Crimea has become a discovery for our Asian colleagues in terms of the fact that the peninsula is home to three indigenous peoples of Ukraine. In particular, harassment and repression of Crimean Tatars because of their religion, destruction and theft of the cultural heritage of the Kyrymla became sensitive topic”, said Ms. Tasheva.

Sheikh Murat Suleymanov said that this is an important step for the Ukrainian state, and he is ready to provide all possible support in this direction and to cooperate to strengthen the influence in Muslim countries.

The Mission of the President is grateful for such an important and warm meeting!

On March 24, 2021, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy approved the “Strategy for the Deoccupation and Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol” by his Decree No. 117/2021: https://cutt.ly/uxR7hfC

 The Strategy is the first fundamental document since 2014 that comprehensively defines the directions of Ukraine’s policy on the liberation of the occupied Crimea from the occupiers and further reintegration. It was also a powerful signal to our international partners on the eve of the launch of the Crimean Platform, as it has become our key foreign policy tool for consolidating international efforts to deoccupy the peninsula.

This Strategy is the basis for the vision document of the “Strategy for the Restoration of Crimea after Deoccupation” and other developments that guide us in developing reintegration measures. The provisions of the Strategy became the basis for the Law “On Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine”.

 This important document contains many important thematic blocks: information policy, human rights protection, economic and environmental component, cultural and technical component, socio-economic rights. The Strategy envisages the implementation of various measures for the deoccupation of the Ukrainian peninsula – diplomatic, military, economic, informational, humanitarian and other.

The Mission’s team worked hard to develop the Strategy. Its approval became possible due to the leading role of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who raised the issue of the occupied Crimea and the creation of policies for its deoccupation and reintegration to a high political level.

 Thus, the “Strategy for Deoccupation and Reintegration” prioritized the political and diplomatic path of deoccupation, but never excluded the military one. Therefore, in the face of a full-scale invasion, Ukraine will choose how to liberate its people and territory from the Russian occupiers.

The goals of the Strategy are the goals of Ukraine’s victory. Restoration of the territorial integrity and security of the state, ensuring national unity and sustainable comprehensive development based on European integration, the rule of law and preservation of the cultural diversity of indigenous peoples.

“This year, some measures and emphases of the Strategy will undergo changes that have become necessary in the context of Russia’s full-scale invasion and are a requirement of the times. The Strategy will consolidate the key thesis – the end of the war will begin with the liberation of Crimea because the war began with its occupation. There will also be provisions that will detail the framework of reintegration measures: from the restoration of public authorities to the verification of documents and transactions”, said the Permanent Representative Tamila Tasheva.

 We continue to work for the faster deoccupation and safe reintegration of the Crimean Peninsula. Together we win!

The Mission of the President together with the “East Europe” Foundation created and launched the online course “ProKrym: State Policy of Reintegration of Crimea”.

The course is free of charge and available on the educational online platform “Zrozumilo” at the following link: https://cutt.ly/84Ry31U

Throughout all stages of the course development, the Mission’s team was engaged in the search and involvement of experts, structuring, content and editing. We are sincerely grateful to everyone who contributed to this important educational project!

The new online course “ProKrym” covers:

• The history of the Crimean Peninsula, in particular in the context of the development of indigenous peoples and Ukrainians;
• The main events and consequences of the occupation for the peninsula and its population;
• Key legal acts, Ukraine’s position on terminology and certain important issues related to the occupation;
• Crimean state authorities that are temporarily relocated and operate on the territory controlled by Ukraine;
• Positions of international institutions in the context of the temporary occupation of Crimea;
• International litigation between Ukraine and Russia.

The course was led by well-known Ukrainian journalists Vadym Karpiak and Iryna Slavinska.

Others invited Ukrainian experts and government officials commented on Crimea, including: Tamila Tasheva, Iryna Vereshchuk, Anton Korynevych, Ihor Ponochovny, Maria Tomak, Arsen Zhumadilov, Alyona Luneva, Olga Skrypnyk, and Andriy Ivanets.

Developed by well-known Ukrainian experts Daria Svyrydova and Yulia Tyshchenko.

This course is designed for civil servants, local government officials, politicians and ordinary citizens of Ukraine who are interested in public policy issues in the context of the temporary occupation of Crimea.

All lectures are accompanied by Crimean Tatar subtitles. After successfully passing the final test, students will receive a certificate with 0.2 ECTS credits.

The course was developed within the framework of the Project “Supporting the Crimean Platform: Time to Recall that Crimea is Ukraine”, implemented by the East Europe Foundation with the support of USAID – US Agency for International Development.

In Bakhchisarai, occupying forces conducted an illegal search in the house of Mustafa Mustafayev, a delegate of the Kurultai of the Crimean Tatar people. According to the FSS, the search took place due to reports of alleged damage to the railway in Bakhchisaray district on February 23, 2023.

Mr. Mustafayev and his son Sabri were taken to the building of the occupying FSS. According to local activists, their neighbor, 33-year-old Shevket Ergashev, was also taken along with the Mustafayevs.

Earlier, on November 21, 2017, the FSS officers had already conducted an illegal search in Mustafa Mustafayev’s house.

Mr. Mustafa appeared in the occupation court in the case of the Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people Ilmi Umerov as a defense witness and attended illegal trials of Crimean Tatars in the occupied Crimea.

We draw the attention of the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine to yet another violation of the rights and freedoms of a Ukrainian citizen. We call on the international community to condemn the actions of the Russian Federation and the occupying administrations of Crimea under its control and to continue political and diplomatic pressure on the aggressor country. Only deoccupation will put an end to the abuse of Ukrainian citizens and return peaceful and free life to the temporarily occupied Crimean Peninsula!