The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses its resolute protest over the criminal actions of the Russian occupational authorities in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and another wave of illegal searches and detentions, which led to the death of a legendary Crimean Tatar activist, veteran of the Crimean Tatar national movement, Vedzhie Kashka.

Almost daily searches and detentions of Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian activists, intimidation and persecution of the opponents of the occupation as well as of the representatives of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, are proof of the Kremlin's systemic criminal policy in the occupied Ukrainian territories.

The occupational authorities of the aggressor state insidiously and systematically violate their obligations as the occupying power, as a party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, as well as ignores the Order of the International Court of Justice of 19.04.2017, which obliged Russia to refrain from maintaining or imposing limitations on the ability of the Crimean Tatar community to conserve its representative institutions, including the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People,. 

We call upon international partners to reinforce political and economic pressure, including sanctions, on the aggressor state, in order to defend the population of the peninsula from the  purposeful oppression and persecution of the Kremlin's occupational regime, in order to halt these  appalling criminal acts and accelerate the de-occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.