400 people became victims of political terror in Crimea

Repressions in the occupied Crimea remain systemic and targeted at representatives of the indigenous people. The monitoring confirms the duration and scale of human rights violations on the peninsula.

This is evidenced by the data of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center.

As of July 2025, 260 political prisoners from the occupied Crimea are being held in Russian prisons and detention centers, 153 of them are representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people. These data were published by the Crimean Tatar Resource Center (CTRC), which has been monitoring repressions on the peninsula since the beginning of the occupation.

In total, since 2014, the CTRC has recorded 413 cases of politically motivated persecution in Crimea, and more than 240 of them concern Crimean Tatars. The persons persecuted by the Russian authorities are divided into several categories: 195 have already been convicted and are serving their sentences (including 116 Crimean Tatars), 65 are being held in pre-trial detention centers (37 are Crimean Tatars), and 58 are under restriction of liberty or probation.

Some activists have been released (60 people), but they remain at risk, and another 35 are under investigation or pressure (28 are Crimean Tatars).

The CTRC has also recorded dozens of cases of other forms of persecution: at least 4 Crimean Tatars were victims of political terror, 11 more suffered from discrimination, 8 from pressure and terror, and 6 from police arbitrariness. Of the 30 recorded cases of enforced disappearances, 19 involved Crimean Tatars. Among the disappeared, 19 people have not yet been declared wanted.

The CTRC's monitoring data confirmed that repressions in the occupied Crimea have become systemic and are primarily directed against the Crimean Tatars, the indigenous people of the peninsula who are the most resistant to the Russian occupation.

During the prisoner exchanges, Russia resists the return of Azov fighters, journalists, and Crimean Tatars the most. The occupiers consider the Tatars to be particularly undesirable, as their release, in their view, strengthens resistance on the peninsula.

At least 61 political activists have been killed during the occupation of Crimea, including 29 Crimean Tatars. According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, activists and ordinary citizens are being silenced through trumped-up cases, arrests, and abductions. In Russian prisons, people are tortured with electric shocks, suffocated with bags, and beaten to extract "confessions" to fictitious crimes.

Due to political persecution, at least 200 children in Crimea are growing up without a father - some of them were born after the arrests and have never seen their fathers outside. In total, from 2017 to 2024, 10,000 human rights violations were recorded in the occupied Crimea, including 6,730 against Crimean Tatars.

Анна Бальчінос