JOINT STATEMENT OF THE COUNCIL OF NATIONAL COMMUNITIES OF UKRAINE AND THE UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ON THE GENOCIDE BY THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION AGAINST THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF RUSSIA AND UKRAINE

We, the members of the Council of National Communities of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, strongly condemn the aggressive imperial policy pursued by the Kremlin towards the Crimean Tatar people and the indigenous peoples of Russia. Humanity found itself in the face of an unprecedented scale of genocide unleashed by the Russian aggressor.

It is not only about crimes against the Ukrainian nation, which has been heroically repelling the armed onslaught of the Russian army for the eighth month under daily missile and artillery attacks. We are also talking about the genocide of indigenous peoples of Russia itself, including those whom Russia itself does not recognize as indigenous peoples, artificially creating legislative barriers for that.

Numerous respected studies prove that the losses of ethnic Russians in the war are tens or even hundreds times smaller than the losses of indigenous peoples and national minorities who inhabit, among others, the North Caucasus and the occupied regions of Georgia and Ukraine. It is from these regions that citizens are primarily mobilized when the Kremlin, having suffered devastating losses on the battlefield, realized that it would not be possible to realize its imperial ambitions. These regions were disproportionately affected by the mobilization announced by the Russian dictator on September 21, 2022. The situation is similar in Dagestan, which suffered the greatest loss of the male population during the invasion of Ukraine. Today, all the national minorities of Russia are on the verge of physical elimination, because they are used to realize the imperial ambitions of the Kremlin.

The numbers are telling: in the temporary occupied Crimea, Crimean Tatars receive almost 50% of conscription notice, while the indigenous people make up a little more than 10% of the population of the peninsula. What they failed to achieve during the forced deportation in 1944, they are trying to complete almost 80 years later.

We address the representatives of our peoples living on the territory of Russia: you have to fight! Rebel against criminal orders! You don't need this war, you don't have to die in it! Almost 60 thousand Russian soldiers have already died because they were afraid to say "no". What is next? Grief and tears of children, mothers, wives, who until the end of their lives will ask the question: what for? We also address our citizens who are in the occupied territories of Ukraine to ignore the mobilization, do not appear at the mobilization points, and do not fulfill orders of the criminal authorities! If you were forced to join this war of aggression, surrender to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but do not raise a hand against your brothers.

For all peoples living on the territory of the Russian Federation, the most important thing is to save the lives of their sons, because there is a long struggle ahead of us for the restoration of our real rights and freedoms, for the restoration of our identity, as well as our statehood.

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