Crimean Refugees

From USA Today: 

"Some Crimeans flee new Russian province"

During her last two days in Crimea, 13-year-old Kateryna Zinovieva began carrying scissors in her pocket — a habit she developed after her parents started receiving death threats. Being vocal opponents of Moscow-backed former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, the family's life turned hellish once the move was on in Crimea to clear the way for a takeover by Russia. Anonymous phone callers harassed them and strangers banged on their front door. Frightened by the threats, the family along with 3,600 other Crimeans left as the Russians moved in, according to figures from the Ministry of Social Politics in Ukraine. The main destination for those fleeing the region is Lviv, a western Ukrainian city seen as the center of nationalist movements that have scared many Ukrainians.

Now it hosts many who have fled the peninsula, with 300 families offered shelter with people already living there. Twenty-seven-year-old Zarema Kuchuk, her husband and their three small children have been living with a Lviv family since early March. They are Crimean Tatars, the minority ethnic group of around 500,000 people who are from Crimea. "We know Russia," Kuchuk said. "We know that it has always treated the Crimean Tatars badly in the past." Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea last week after Russian troops along with pro-Moscow Crimeans took over the Ukraine province. He has shown no sign of giving it back despite pressure from Western nations that the move is illegal. Putin on Thursday told members of the Russia Federation Council that he plans a swift integration of the region into Russia. "We are now facing many questions, which lawmakers are confronted with as well," Putin said according to the Moscow Times. "We must ensure that Crimea and Sevastopol enter our legal system smoothly, carefully, systematically and professionally without creating any problems for people, and while developing the economy and social spheres of these two new subjects of the Russian Federation." Putin also insisted that Crimean authorities be actively involved in the transition process for the residents of Crimea to feel like "full-fledged citizens of the Russian Federation as quickly as possible." Originally from Crimea, the Tatars were driven out and deported and, according to some reports, killed, under the orders of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Many fled to Turkey and Central Asia, only allowed to return to the peninsula since 1989. "We want to go back eventually," Kuchuk said. "But we will never be Russian citizens. This is just not us. All Crimean Tatars feel this way about Russia." Still, she said it is hard to know they have left everything behind. "What we have now, we've earned grain by grain since we returned to Crimea," Kuchuk said. "It's not easy to just abandon everything and leave. We told the kids we were here on vacation." In the city of Dnipropetrovsk, ethnic Ukrainian Eygeniy Krivenko fled his home two weeks ago out of fear of the violence that has escalated in the past month. "One can get beaten for just speaking Ukrainian on the street now," he said. "The friends I've known for 10 years now watch out for anyone Ukrainian as an enemy. They started giving me warnings." The 38-year-old single father is especially worried about his 5-year-old daughter Eva, who is still suffering from shock after witnessing him almost getting attacked for trying to film a pro-Russia rally in the Crimean city of Yevpatoriya. One of the rally participants shouted at Krivenko's daughter and cursed her. Once they had arrived in Dnipropetrovsk, Krivenko took Eva to the first demonstration that took place there just to show that she wouldn't get attacked again. "My daughter used to proudly tell everyone she's Ukrainian," he said. "Now she's stopped doing it."

 

^ I have seen the pictures of the refugees. They don't look that those of World War 2 or the Yugoslav Wars. They are different in that many people have had to flee in secret so the pro-Russians and the Russian military doesn't get them. There is all this talk about how the ethnic Russians were being abused and discriminated against (something that has never been shown to be true in the 23 years since the Ukraine has been independent.) It seems the real instigators of the violence are the ethnic Russians in the Ukraine (both in the Crimea as well as in eastern Ukraine.) The "legitimacy" that Russia claimed to have in their invasion and occupation of the Ukraine has since been shown to be false with the majority of UN countries recently saying it was "illegal." I can only hope that these refugees are given the basics they need and deserve and that the world doesn't forget those still in Russian-occupied Ukraine. ^

 

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/03/27/ukraine-crimea-refugees/6972573/