Foreign Ministry: Russia forcibly evicts Ukrainians from occupied Crimea

This was stated by Ambassador on Special Assignments of the Ministry of foreign affairs of Ukraine Larysa Gerasko during an online conference on water supply problems in the annexed Crimea, the TSN website reports.

At the same time, the diplomat said, the Russian authorities are resettling their own population on the peninsula — more than 140 thousand Russians have changed their place of registration to Crimea.

Gerasko also said that Russia violates the Hague Conventions and forcibly extended its citizenship to the entire population of the peninsula, including stateless persons. Also, the Russian Federation violates the right to life, freedom and security through violence against people. Thus, after the annexation of 2014, more than 40 people disappeared, including Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar activists and journalists.

As RISU has already reported, in the occupied Crimea, the indigenous population is being displaced and discriminated against on religious grounds.

Throughout the entire period since the illegal referendum, there has been a clear tendency to oust the indigenous population from the peninsula, primarily Crimean Tatars and Crimean Tatar activists, and conditions incompatible with ordinary life are being formed for the part of the population that has retained Ukrainian citizenship, refusing to accept Russian citizenship.

The OCU was also persecuted on religious grounds in the occupied Crimea. In August of this year, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine appealed to the UN Security Council requesting to protect the Ukrainian community in the occupied Crimea and return Russia to the legal field.

The Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Epifaniy, met with the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on October 23 during his first visit to the United States and spoke about the harassment of religious freedom in Crimea.

For the first time in its history since coming out of hiding, the UGCC faced the challenge of liquidating its Crimean Exarchate. The situation in Crimea is tense, but despite this, the UGCC has preserved its parishes on the temporarily occupied peninsula.

Exarch of the Odessa UGCC Mykhailo (Bubny) said this in an interview with the media komora.info.

"We have preserved the communities in Crimea, no matter what," he said.

"We have found temporary methods so that our faithful can pray in their churches in the temporarily occupied territory," the bishop added.

According to him, after the occupation of Crimea, many UGCC believers left for mainland Ukraine. There were only those who had nowhere to go. The situation remains tense.