Over 205,000 Russians Resettled to Occupied Crimea

According to the website of the Office of the Federal State Statistics Service for the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, a total of 33,137 people arrived in Crimea as part of the “interregional migration movement” as of the end of 2020.

In total, during the entire period of peninsula’s occupation, 205,559 people arrived in Crimea. Of them, 117,114 people arrived in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and 88,445 in Sevastopol.

The Crimean Human Rights Group notes that the total number of Russians resettled to Crimea is much higher. After all, the statistics do not include the military contingent of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and Russians sent to the peninsula on business trips.

At the same time, according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the transfer by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population to the occupied territory is a war crime.

As a reminder, by adopting the Resolution “Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine” at the General Assembly session on 16 December 2020, the UN called on the Russian Federation to fulfill its obligations as the Occupying Power in accordance with international law, as well as to stop the transfer of its civilian population to Crimea and the practice of encouraging such resettlement.

Natalia Tolub