MENU
Documenting
war crimes in Ukraine
The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

Similar articles

Only 0.09% of schoolkids study in Ukrainian in Russian-occupied Crimea despite Hague Court order Russia uses threats & intimidation to drive Crimean Tatar language out of schools in occupied CrimeaRussia has eliminated all classes taught in Ukrainian since its annexation of CrimeaPutin visits Mariupol in propaganda stunt by night to conceal how Russia has destroyed the cityRussia denies Ukrainian prisoners of war protected status, tortures out 'confessions' and then stages illegal ‘trials’ Constitution of Ukraine: social contract in the trials of warCrimean artist tortured into ‘apologising’ to Putin and Russian invaders of UkraineNobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski and his Viasna colleagues sentenced to heavy prison terms in BelarusUkraine’s new Media Law is ‘soaked in censorship,’ expert says‘Planes and helicopters dropped shells in the garden’ (Moshchun resident Tetiana Shyrant)About the KHPGIllegal Flowers, Solitary Protestors, Molotov Cocktails: a Digest of Russian ProtestsRussia announces ‘trial’ of Ukrainian prisoner of war on extremely dubious charges Prayers for Peace are Forbidden: a Digest of Russian ProtestsWhat did the media team of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group deal with in 2022?‘Grads maneuvered between our houses and shelled Mariupol’. The story of RomanInvestigators say Putin probably authorized the use of the Russian Buk missile that downed MH17, killing 298 civilians It's back to the USSR as Russia tries to destroy Ukrainian identity on occupied territory Ukrainian works of literature and history banned as ‘extremist’ in Russian occupied Luhansk oblast Poetry and Flowers Against the War – Digest of Russian Protests
• Topics / Human Rights Abuses in Russian-occupied Crimea

Russia excludes Ukrainian from the census it is illegally holding in occupied Crimea

28.10.2021   
Halya Coynash

Protest against Russian invasion in 2014 Photo Reuters

While constantly demanding official status for the Russian language in Ukraine and claiming that Russian speakers face ‘discrimination’, Russia has not included Ukrainian in the list of languages which can be used in completing its 2021 census. The latter is illegal in any case since it is being held in occupied Crimea, but the omission is telling.

According to the 2010 census, before Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea, there were close on two million Ukrainians in the Russian Federation, with this making them the third largest ethnic group in the country.  Russian officials would doubtless claim that no Ukrainian option of the census is required as “all Ukrainians speak Russian”.  This, however, is surely a direct result of Russia’s chauvinist education system and the lack of any schools teaching in Ukrainian.  Moscow does, however, shout ‘discrimination’ and ‘persecution’ whenever Ukraine implements legitimate requirements, such as that children learn Ukrainian and that the latter is the language used by state bodies. 

Ekho Moskvy journalist Alexei Naryshkin, who posted a screenshot of the electronic census form, with Ukrainian not included, writes that there are ten possible languages: Bashkir; Buryat; Chinese; Chuvash; English; Korean; Uzbek and the Yakut language. The list seems rather strange, and undoubtedly excludes many indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation whose languages have been increasingly stifled over recent years.

As mentioned, any result of this ‘census’, which began on 15 October, is already illegitimate as Russia, as an occupying state, has no right to hold it in occupied Crimea. The move has not just been condemned by Kyiv. In a statement on 15 October, the European Union was scathing about both the census and the latest illegal conscription campaign in occupied Crimea.  It wrote that:

“These actions are an attempt to legitimise the illegal annexation of Crimea and further undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.”

Russia is currently dragging out proceedings at the UN’s International Court of Justice at the Hague with one of the claims that Ukraine has brought being over Russia’s alleged violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination against Crimean Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians in occupied Crimea.  It has its reasons, albeit illegitimate, since it is continuing to flout the Court provisional measures from 2017, ordering Russia to withdraw its ban of the Mejlis (self-governing body) of the Crimean Tatar people and to ensure the availability in education of the Ukrainian language in occupied Crimea.

Instead of ending its discrimination of both ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, it opted for pretence and doctored statistics. A ‘law’ passed by the occupation regime in 2017, recognizing three official languages in occupied Crimea – Ukrainian, Crimean Tatar and Russia – is a mere façade, as several Crimean Tatar political prisoners discovered recently when they were thrown out of their own ‘trial’ for insisting on speaking Crimean Tatar. 

In a report about the human rights situation in Crimea after seven years of occupation, the Crimean Human Rights Group and other NGOs reported a catastrophic fall in the number of schoolchildren studying in Ukrainian.  The number of students was 36 times lower than in 2014, while the number of classes with teaching in Ukrainian had fallen by 31 times.  There was a sharp decrease in all options for education in Ukrainian, and even for learning Ukrainian as a subject. 

According to the Russian occupation statistics, the percentage of children studying in Crimean Tatar has not changed significantly, however NGOs dispute these statistics and say that the education “in Crimean Tatar” is on paper alone.  Back in 2019, the Crimean Human Rights Group demonstrated how the statistics lie.  In three schools they monitored, where classes were supposed to be taught in Crimean Tatar, only some lessons were not in Russian.   In one of the schools, Crimean Tatar as a separate subject was taught only up to the ninth grade (not the tenth and eleventh).  10 of the 18 schools visited, which were claimed by the ‘ministry’ to have classes in Crimean Tatar, had signs in front of the schools only in Russian. 

 Share this