Russia Deports At Least 12,000 Civilians from Occupied Crimea, Prosecutor Says
The Russian occupation authorities have forcibly deported at least 12,000 civilians from Crimea, according to Vitalii Sekretar, first deputy head of the Prosecutor's Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol.
The Gaze reports on it, referring to Ukrinform.
"When we began to investigate the methods used by the Russian Federation to deport civilians from Crimea, we established that there are about 12,000 court decisions on the facts indicated, issued by the occupying authorities. That's 12,000 clearly identified people," Vitalii Sekretar said.
At the same time, it's hard to figure out the exact number of victims, because not all of them realize they've been victims of war crimes.
Sekretar noted that not all persons who were forced to leave Crimea have been granted internally displaced person (IDP) status.
According to statistics, approximately 55,000 persons from Crimea have IDP status, while approximately 28,000 persons have refused this legal status or have left for Western countries.
The prosecutor's office urges victims to report violations, assuring them that only the prosecutor and investigator have access to the materials of criminal proceedings, and that information transmitted to the International Criminal Court is encrypted and remains confidential. This ensures the protection of victims' safety and the preservation of their data.
Earlier, Ukrainian hackers from the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (HUR) carried out a large-scale cyberattack on the servers of the occupying authorities in Crimea, obtaining evidence of numerous violations by the Russian Federation.
The operation allowed them to collect more than 100 terabytes of data, including official correspondence from the “head of Crimea” Sergey Aksyonov, correspondence between ‘ministries’ and services, as well as working documents of the occupying “government.”
Among the most important materials obtained were documents concerning the illegal removal of Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories to Crimea and Russia.
As The Gaze informed earlier, world leaders and international organizations gathered at the United Nations headquarters on September 24 for the Fifth Crimea Platform Summit, where participants adopted the “New York Declaration.”
The declaration rejects any territorial changes achieved through aggression, condemns ongoing human rights violations in occupied Crimea, particularly against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, and supports diplomatic efforts toward a just and lasting peace.