Russian officials have mostly stopped talking about this development, Eurasianet reports. But Crimean and Ukrainian officials have expressed mounting concern. Yevhenia Goryunova, a Crimean political analyst, refers to the departures as a form of “’soft deportation,’” by which Moscow achieves its goals by imposing unbearable conditions on the population. As a result, “Crimeans are ever more often becoming aliens in their own land which is rapidly being populated by Russians,” most of whom are siloviki or government employees. As a result, Goryunova suggests, the trend will continue, with ever more natives leaving, ever more Russians arriving and the population gradually falling.Still more troubling, the official statistics show that the number of new arrivals has remained stable while that of departures has increased in the last year alone.
The portion of the population that the Russian occupiers are most interested in pushing out consists of the Crimean Tatars, according to Iryna Pribytkova of the Kyiv Institute of Sociology at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. They are being “provoked” into leaving as part of Russian occupation policy. Russia’s Kerch Bridge will only accelerate this process, she adds, allowing Moscow to introduce more military technology and personnel and thus isolate and push out the Crimean Tatars and other non-Russians.“Russia doesn’t need those who ever more often recall that they lived better when the peninsula was under Ukrainian administration. It does not want to see on the peninsula those who despite harsh restrictions are nonetheless ready to take part in protests – even when these are not political but a defense of business and property,” Goryunova says.
Further Reading:
- Russia’s transformation of ethnic mix in occupied Crimea an act of genocide
- ‘The disappeared’ – the hidden part of Russia’s hybrid deportation of the Crimean Tatars
- Putin repeating Stalin’s genocide with ‘new hybrid deportation of Crimean Tatars’
- Russian occupiers continue to destroy history and culture of Crimean Tatars
- Crimean Tatar activist accused of terrorism vows to continue hunger strike until Russia releases all Ukrainian political prisoners
- Putin repeating Stalin’s genocide with ‘new hybrid deportation of Crimean Tatars’
- Chronology of the annexation of Crimea
- Hacked military docs reveal how the Russian 18th motorized brigade invaded Crimea
- 74 years on, Russian genocide of Crimean Tatars continues
- Moscow forming ‘death squads’ in occupied Crimea and elsewhere
- Hague court rules Russia must compensate Ukrainian investors $159 mn for Crimea losses
- Four years after annexation: Ukraine still connected with occupied Crimea, albeit weakly
- Little green men: the annexation of Crimea as an emblem of pro-Kremlin disinformation
- The attack on media freedom in Crimea threatens to stop coverage of rights abuses
- Crimean jailed for Ukrainian flag announces termless hunger strike
- The Crimean Tatar Palace and other historic sites Russia is destroying in occupied Crimea
- Military base instead of a resort: Crimea four years after the occupation
- We must protect Crimea’s human rights defenders
- UK journalist who wrote about Crimean Tatar political prisoners fined, expelled from Crimea