Kyiv, March 17, 2014. Ukrainian communities in Russia, especially their leaders, are under great pressure, according to Valentyn Pylypchuk, Head of the Kamchatka’s Ukrainian community, during a briefing at the Ukraine Crisis Media Center. A similar situation has been reported in Crimea and in Southern Ukraine, where persecution of Ukrainian-speaking citizens has begun under the pretense of protecting Russian-speaking residents.
According to Pylypchuk, thirteen civil organizations of Ukrainians in Russia have appealed to President Putin, urging him to withdraw troops from Crimea and prevent the bloodshed. These leaders of Ukrainian communities in Russia are now being persecuted. “There is a real threat to their lives”, he said. The head of the Ukrainian Worldwide Coordination Council Mykhailo Ratushny added: “Russia is completely ignoring the Ukrainian ethnic minority. Recent events only reinforced this trend. It is not only difficult to be a Ukrainian in Russia. It is dangerous.”
Notably, the latest census in the Russian Federation reports that approximately 1,928,000 Ukrainians live in Russia, of whom 1,100,000 consider Ukrainian to be their native language.
Ukrainians, one of Russia’s largest ethnic minorities, have no Ukrainian schools, kindergartens or churches on the territory of Russian Federation. The Ukrainian community is deprived of television or radio programs in their own language. The only federal Ukrainian organization that had existed was disbanded by the Russian government a few years ago under false pretense. After that, Ukrainians have twice convened to form a Ukrainian Congress of Russia, but both times the Russian Ministry of Justice refused to register the civic organization as required by the law.
“Today, there is a real threat to the life and safety of Ukrainian citizens in Crimea”, said Oleksandra Dvoretska, Coordinator of a Network of Legal Protection Offices in Crimea. Dozens of Ukrainian-speaking activists from the peninsula have been forced to hide or flee because of increasingly frequent threats made by Crimea’s self-proclaimed authorities and armed individuals.
Ms Dvoretska herself had to leave her home town of Simferopol on March 10, 2014, because of threats made by the pro-Russian forces and Serhiy Aksionov’s government. Posters saying “Your neighbor Oleksandra Dvoretska is a traitor of Crimea” appeared at the entrance to Olexandra’s home and all over her parents’ neighborhood in Simferopol. In addition she received a leaflet with a “Black Spot” in her mailbox. “Today, it is not safe for people who support Ukraine and its integrity and consider themselves citizens of this country to stay in Crimea”, said Dvoretska.
The current campaign was preceded by the continuous harassment of Crimea’s pro-Ukrainian activists who supported Euromaidan in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. These threats have been partially carried out. On March 9, 2014 at a railway station in Simferopol unidentified persons wearing camouflage with striped St. George ribbons kidnapped two Crimean citizens of Ukraine: Andrey Schekun, Leader of the Center for Business and Cultural Cooperation “Ukrainian House”, and Anatoliy Kovalskiy, Head of the school board of a Ukrainian Secondary School in Simferopol. On March 11, 2014 a citizen of Simferopol, public activist Mikhail Vdovychenko, disappeared in the center of Simferopol as he was returning home from an anti-war protest.
These individuals are well known in Crimea as leaders of Ukrainian organizations, which suggests that they were likely to have been targeted for their pro-Ukrainian position.
After the abduction of three Ukrainians in Simferopol, a large-scale manhunt targeting supporters of Ukraine’s territorial integrity was launched. Today, Crimean Ukrainians who make up about 23% of the autonomous republic’s population, are the least protected ethnic group in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and their constitutional rights are being grossly violated. For example, the Ukrainian language is no longer used in official documents in Sevastopol. The Ukrainian language department of Vernadskyi Tavrida National University has been disbanded.
Arkadiy Bushchenko, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union, said: “Under the current circumstances, it is Russia who is responsible for all human rights violations happening in Crimea. These violations are happening under Russian control. Local authorities do not control the situation but are actively pushing Russia to prevent a part of the local population from expressing its standpoint. Local authorities are provoking the aggression of one part of the Crimean population against the other, who have different views,” he said.