On the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and First Lady Olena Zelenska installed lamps at the Memorial to the Victims of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People in the Myra Square in Kyiv.

"Today we remember and honor the memory of all the victims of one of the most brutal crimes of the Soviet regime - the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people. The deportation, which became an act of obvious genocide against the Crimean Tatar people. The year 1944 will forever go down in history as an attempt to destroy the people, when children and adults were thrown out of their homes and sent to a foreign land," Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted.

The memory of each and every person killed by this deportation was honored with a moment of silence.

The President emphasized that this crime cannot be forgotten or forgiven, especially since Russia has started a new war against Ukraine from Crimea.

"We do not forget about our people, about those who resisted and are resisting in Crimea, about those who were captured and are being held by the Russians. All Crimean prisoners of Russia must be released from captivity. We are working on every surname, every fate. We will not leave anyone to the enemy," the Head of State emphasized.

The leader of the Crimean Tatar people, Mustafa Dzhemilev, noted that for this indigenous people of Ukraine, deportation and genocide have become part of historical memory and identity.

"It was this memory that inspired generations of Crimean Tatars to fight against the communist regime, to return to their homeland and restore their rights. It was this memory that prompted almost the entire Crimean Tatar people, led by the Mejlis, in February 2014 to openly speak out against the occupation of Crimea by the legal successors, the ideological heirs of the totalitarian Soviet regime, and later to take on the main blow of the repressive machine of the occupation authorities," he said.

At the end of the ceremony, the mufti of the Spiritual Administration of Crimea, Ayder Rustemov, offered a prayer in memory of the victims of the genocide of the Crimean Tatar people.

The deportation of the Crimean Tatars began at 3 a.m. on May 18, 1944, and ended on May 20. In less than two days, the Soviet authorities evicted the entire indigenous people of Crimea from the peninsula. On November 12, 2015, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a law recognizing the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people in 1944 as genocide and established May 18 as a day of remembrance for the victims of this crime.