President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law on the protection of those who fell victim to repressions from the invaders and were in Russian captivity. The head of state announced this during an address to citizens on May 18, when it is 78 years since the start of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars from Crimea by the Soviet regime..

“On this day, I am signing a law on the social and legal protection of persons in respect of whom the fact of deprivation of personal freedom as a result of armed aggression against Ukraine and members of their families has been established,” Zelensky said and immediately signed the document.

He explained that this law is to protect all those - ordinary civilians - who were repressed by the invaders and who were captured by them.

“This law, in particular, is for Nariman Dzhelal, and for many others who in the Crimea, in their native home, are deprived of foreigners. For those who are in prisons on the peninsula and who have been taken to Russia. This law is for relatives and friends of the prisoners of the Kremlin, in Donetsk, Luhansk, and all those regions and in the Crimea, for everyone who was subjected to bullying from the enemy. This law is help and protection,” Zelensky said during his video message on the anniversary of the Soviet regime’s deportation of Crimean Tatars from Crimea..

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In May 1944, the NKVD conducted a special operation to forcibly expel the indigenous population from Crimea.. Over 200,000 Tatars were evicted from Crimea (mainly to the Central Asian republics) in three days. More than 30 thousand of them died from hunger and cold in the first year after the deportation.

The repressions were carried out on the basis of a “completely secret” resolution of the USSR State Defense Committee that issued “On the Crimean Tatars”, which attributed to the Crimean Tatars “mass betrayal and mass collaborationism”.

Not only Crimean Tatars suffered from deportation. In June 1944.

Greeks, Bulgarians and Armenians were forcibly evicted from the territory of the peninsula. In 1943-1944, the so-called "

Crimean Tatars received the right to return to their historical homeland only after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

At the same time, since the occupation of the peninsula in 2014, Russians in Crimea have again practiced illegal arrests, torture and long-term imprisonment for dissenters, mainly Crimean Tatars.. Because of the risk to their lives, many Crimean Tatars had to leave the occupied Crimea.