UWC marks the International Day of Indigenous Peoples

Today, on August 9, Ukraine and the world traditionally mark the International Day of Indigenous Peoples.

The Crimean Tatars, Karaites, and Krymchaks are legally recognized as indigenous peoples in Ukraine. The homeland for all three is the Crimean peninsula, and for 9 years these indigenous peoples of Ukraine have been deprived of the opportunity to freely develop their distinctive culture and language due to the deadly Russian occupation. 

Since 2014, about 30,000 Crimean Tatars have been forced to leave Crimea. The Russian occupiers continue to conduct systematic gross human rights violations and persecute Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian community members for their nationality, religion, and language. Russia has been condemned for conducting ethnic cleansing and delivering indoctrination camps in Crimea.   

However, Russia’s criminal policy towards the indigenous peoples of Ukraine is not an exception but a regular practice for the Putin regime. Inside Russia, Moscow implements a systematic policy of forced assimilation of its indigenous peoples and systematically destroys their cultural heritage, traditions, language, and national memory. Activists of the national movements of the enslaved peoples of Russia who dare protest against the Kremlin’s discrimination are brutally persecuted and often killed by the Russian security service. 

Russia also uses its full-scale military aggression against Ukraine as a true empire to exterminate its enslaved peoples. Even the official enemy statistics admit that deaths among representatives of Russian indigenous peoples at the frontline in Ukraine are much higher than those of ethnic Russians. Thus, Moscow is carrying out genocide against its own indigenous peoples. 

As a response to this criminal policy of the Putin regime, the number of so-called “national units” made up to a large extent of representatives of the indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation is growing constantly in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Today, we draw the world’s attention to the Kremlin’s crimes against the indigenous peoples of Ukraine and the enslaved peoples of Russia. We also call upon the international community to stand strong with Ukraine as its brave defenders continue the counteroffensive in the south to throw the Russian invaders out of all Ukrainian lands. 

Russia has long been a concentration camp of nations, and the sooner this concentration camp is dismantled, the better for a peaceful world and civilized humanity.