The U.S. calls on Russia to stop bringing suffering to the population of the temporarily occupied Crimea, stop conscripting the armed forces on the peninsula, and immediately regain full control of the Ukrainian peninsula, said U.S. Chargé d’Affaires a.i. in Ukraine Kristina A. Kvien.
“We call on Russia to stop its legacy of inflicting suffering on the people of Crimea, to end conscripting and immediately return full control of Crimea to Ukraine. We stand with Crimea and reaffirm that Crimea is Ukraine,” she said in her video address posted on the official Facebook page of the Embassy on May 18
According to Kvien, the Soviet deportation of Crimean Tatars caused unthinkable injuries, suffering and the death of many thousands of people.
“The grief these individuals and their families endured cannot be measured or justified. That drama and suffering that only deepen by Russia’s modern date occupation of Crimea. Our Crimea related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of the Crimean Peninsula to Ukraine. And out commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity is unshakable,” the diplomat stressed.
As reported, 76 years ago, on May 18, 1944, by the decision of the USSR State Defense Committee, signed by its chairman Joseph Stalin, the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people from the territory of their historical Motherland – Crimea – to remote areas of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation began.
