Occupants launch deportation of Crimean Tatars to Central Asia

Rashists have introduced the so-called "expulsion regime," which allows for the deprivation of citizenship - a new tool of political reprisals against Crimean Tatars and residents of the occupied territories. This practice threatens a new wave of deportations to Central Asian countries.

This was stated by the head of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center Eskender Bariev during the OSCE conference in Warsaw.

Eskender Bariev spoke in Warsaw during the plenary session of the OSCE Human Dimension Conference. In his speech, he called on the organization to develop an Action Plan to improve the situation of indigenous peoples within the OSCE region.

Bariiev emphasized that the issue of protecting indigenous peoples is of particular importance in the context of interstate conflict. He reminded that after the occupation of Crimea in 2014, Russia launched mass repressions, searches and detentions, banned the activities of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, which led to the forced departure of Crimean Tatars from the peninsula.

In 2022, Russia launched a full-scale armed aggression against Ukraine, which led to a humanitarian catastrophe not only in Europe but also around the world: millions of Ukrainians were forced to leave for other countries, and tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars left Crimea due to persecution and mobilization into the Russian army," Bariiev said.

He also said that in 2025, the so-called "eviction regime" came into force in Russia, which allows deprivation of citizenship - a new tool of political reprisals. The first cases of deprivation of citizenship of political prisoners have already been recorded, which creates the threat of their deportation to Central Asia, the places where Crimean Tatars were expelled in 1944.

He called for: developing an Action Plan to improve the situation of indigenous peoples in the OSCE region; assisting Ukraine in restoring Ukrainian documents of deported citizens and finding intermediary countries to solve this problem; calling on the UN to develop a Humanitarian Response Plan for indigenous peoples from areas of interstate conflict.

In the first nine months of 2025, the Russian occupation structures in Crimea documented 108 cases of illegal interrogations, surveys, and "preventive conversations" with local residents. A total of 177 people were arrested and 100 more detained. Among the detainees, there are 68 Crimean Tatars, and among the hundred arrested, there are 18 representatives of the Crimean Tatar people.

Анна Літман