First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska

Olena Zelenska began her speech by quoting Vedzie Kashka's childhood memories. “Soviet soldiers entered on the night of 18 May 1944, knocking down their door with rifles. One of them beat her mother, threatening to throw them out. They were packed into wagons and taken to Uzbekistan, and on the way they threw out those who had died, they were all very sick and started living in barracks of 6-7 families, and people were dying of starvation”, said The First Lady.

The First Lady of Ukraine emphasized that it was the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014 that marked the beginning of a new creeping war against Ukraine, and in this war, Russia seeks to destroy not just people, it seeks to destroy their identity.

Olena Zelenska noted that it was from Crimea that the Russification of educational institutions, the militarization of children, the forced deportation of minors and their illegal adoption by Russian families, de-facto abduction of Ukrainian children began.

“The generation of 80-year-olds talks about their childhood in deportation, and the generation of today's children talks about their childhood under occupation. However, these are not just patterns of history, this is a wheel that destroys human destinies, launched by the will of the Russian Empire, which did not stop and has not stopped until now, because it has not been punished for Soviet crimes”, First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska.

Summing up, Olena Zelenska added that in July this year, an initiative was launched — the Global Coalition of Ukrainian Studies, which is engaged in the creation of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar studies, and now the goal is to spread the truth about Crimea, because the indigenous people of Ukraine have the right to be known.

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