Address of Secretary of the NSDC of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov on the occasion of the anniversary of Crimean Tatars deportation

Over 70 years ago, the totalitarian Stalinist regime launched a large-scale operation on deportation of the Crimean Tatars nation from the native land. Around two hundred thousand people in just two days were sent to places of exile thousands of miles from Homeland.

Today, events in the Crimea are unfolding under a similar scenario. Having annexed the peninsula, Putin's Russia is trying to destroy the national consciousness, historical memory, cultural traditions, and dignity of Crimean Tatars. All manifestations of defiance and rejection of the annexation are severely repressed, activists are arrested and sentenced on false charges.

The persecution of the indigenous people, Russians' prohibition of the Mejlis which refused to cooperate with the occupants, creating an atmosphere of fear, repressions, the transformation of the peninsula into a military base, - this is a nowhere near complete list of consequences of the occupation of the Crimea by Russia.

Aggressors have at all times understood only force, so the response can only be one - a strong consolidated position of all civilized nations against aggressive manifestations of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation. The rough brutal force will never win the truth and justice.

I am confident that Crimean Tatars and those who had to leave their land will return home - to the Ukrainian Crimea!