Since 2014, Moscow has settled almost a million Russians in occupied Crimea
Kyiv • UNN
Since the occupation of Crimea in 2014, Moscow has relocated 800,000 Russians to the peninsula and displaced about 100,000 Ukrainians, in violation of international humanitarian law.
Since 2014, 800 thousand Russians have arrived on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula. This is stated in a statement by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, UNN reports.
Details
Human rights activists emphasize that Russians have committed an extraordinary number of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other gross human rights violations. In particular, the occupiers are working to change the demographic composition of the population of the occupied territories.
SEE ALSO: Russia is massively transferring Caucasians to Crimea - partisans
Such Russian policy violates international humanitarian law, namely Article 49 of the Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War: "The Occupying Power shall not transfer or deport parts of its own civilian population to the territory it occupies"
In addition, the massive resettlement of Russians to Crimea and the deportation of Ukrainians from there can probably be considered a war crime under Article 8(2)(a)(vii) of the Rome Statute of the ICC and a crime against humanity under Article 7(1)(d).
It is noted that Russia has been successfully implementing such a policy since the occupation of Crimea in 2014.
According to various estimates, up to 800,000 Russian citizens have illegally arrived in Crimea since 2014, while about 100,000 Ukrainians have left the peninsula
Human rights activists explained that this is facilitated by preferential mortgage lending for Russians on the occupied peninsula, expulsion of Ukrainians to the mainland of Ukraine and incentives for Ukrainians to move to Russia.
In addition, Moscow is actively populating the peninsula with state employees from Russia - military, judges, doctors and educators. All of them move with their families.
Appendix
The aggressor state pursues an identical policy in other occupied territories after the start of a full-scale invasion. So far, it has not been as successful, as the intensity of hostilities does not allow motivating Russian civilians to move to the occupied territories en masse.
At the same time, there are exceptions - these are large occupied cities of Ukraine, which are located relatively far from the front line and which can be considered "rear" by Russians, for example, Mariupol.
Earlier UNN reported that according to the Center for National Resistance, Russia has already settled more than 100 thousand migrants from Central Asia in the territory of occupied Mariupol
To recap
Experts of the International Criminal Court support Ukraine's efforts to document alleged genocide and war crimes, related to the Russian aggression, noting that this is the first time such large-scale crimes have been identified.
