It was dedicated to Day of Remembrance for Victims of Crimean Tatars Genocide / Photo from UNIAN

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has tabled draft law No. 5506 on the indigenous peoples of Ukraine in parliament as an urgent one.

This was reported by the presidential press service on May 18, 2021.

"This document defines the rights of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine and the peculiarities of their implementation in order to promote the consolidation and development of the Ukrainian nation, as well as the development of ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of such peoples," it said.

The document was registered in parliament on Day of Remembrance for Victims of Crimean Tatars Genocide.

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Russian occupation of Crimea and Day of Remembrance for Victims of Crimean Tatars Genocide

  • Russia occupied Ukraine's Crimea in March 2014 after its troops had invaded the peninsula. An illegal referendum was held for Crimeans to decide on accession to Russia. De-facto Crimean authorities reported that allegedly 96.77% of the Crimean population had voted for joining Russia.
  • On March 18, 2014, the so-called agreement on the accession of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol to Russia was signed in the Kremlin.
  • The West did not recognize the annexation in response to which sanctions against Russia were introduced.
  • Ukraine's parliament voted to designate February 20, 2014, as the official date when the temporary occupation of Crimea began.
  • On May 18, Ukraine marks Day of Remembrance for Victims of Crimean Tatars Genocide and Day of the Fight for Crimean Tatar People's Rights.
  • It was on this day in 1944 when an operation to deport Crimean Tatars from Crimea was launched by the Stalinist regime. According to the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, 200,000 Crimean Tatars were deported from the Crimean peninsula to special colonies and labor camps in May-June 1944. During the year before the end of the war, more than 30,000 Crimean Tatars died from hunger, diseases and exhaustion.