President-elect Volodymer Zelensky expressed the hopes that Ukraine will manage to liberate Crimea from the occupation on the Day of the anniversary of 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars. Zelensky stated this on Twitter.
“Today is the 75th anniversary of the deportation of Crimean Tatars. Now they are the victims of the repressions again, as those who remained loyal to Ukraine in the occupied Crimea. I believe that we will liberate the homeland of the Crimean Tatars from the occupation. We will do this together,” Zelenske stated.
Earlier, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko commemorated the victims of the genocide of the Crimean Tatars as well.
Today, on May 18, Ukraine marks the anniversary of the 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars. The deportation of the Crimean Tatars was the ethnic cleansing of at least 191,044 Crimean Tatars on 18-20 May 1944; one of the crimes of the Soviet totalitarian regime. That day, the Soviet authorities deported the Tatars from the Crimean peninsula to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. Small groups of people were also sent to the Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, to the Urals and to the Kostroma region of Russia.
A new challenge for the Crimean Tatars started after Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014. Some of them left the peninsula because of persecution, others suffering from raids, trials, and detentions. Some received a ban to the entry to Crimea, including the leaders of the Crimean Tatars Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov.
The struggle of the Tatar people for their land and their rights continues to this day.
