Over 5,000 human rights violations registered in Crimea over past 9.5 years

Crimean Tatar activist Alim Aliev, deputy director of the Ukrainian Institute, said this during the conference "Crimea Global: Understanding Ukraine through the South," according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"Over the past nine-and-a-half years, more than 5,000 human rights violations have been registered in Crimea. This mainly concerns the Crimean Tatars. Russia is trying to focus attention on the Crimean Tatars, describing them as potential terrorists and criminals," he said.

Aliev also noted that today Ukraine is going through the process of decolonization of Crimea.

According to him, "after 2014, Crimea turned into a model of colonization measures for Russia."

"When we talk about internally displaced persons, refugees, almost 70,000 people have left Crimea over the past nine-and-a-half years, but we also have the reverse process, when more than 700,000 people came to Crimea from Russia, and these are already different people. These are not only the military, but also the civilians who colonized Crimea," Aliev said.

"This is our common war. And in this war, many Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians and representatives of other nationalities are now in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the front lines. This is a war not only for our territory, for our land, but also for our identity, for our dignity and for our future," he said.