On 27 March, at the UK Mission in Geneva, we convened an event to hear some hugely important voices: those of Ukrainians living the reality of Russian occupation, and those forced to flee it. 

Our discussion reaffirmed that Russia’s occupation of parts of Ukraine is not just about battlelines of geopolitics:  it is about people – the dismantling of freedoms and rights, and the erosion of identity and diversity of the Ukrainian society.

No place captures this human dimension of war more starkly than Crimea – occupied for more than a decade. Crimea is a home – to Ukrainians of many backgrounds, including the indigenous Crimean Tatar people.

And Crimea is a template of what Russian occupation brings -

there in 2014, and in other temporarily occupied territories today.

Crimea is a place of striking beauty, and a meeting point of cultures and histories.

Those of us lucky enough to have visited before Russia’s occupation remember that and feel the tragedy of knowing that a generation of Ukrainian children is now growing up under Russian occupation. 

As we heard, they are taught a single, manufactured, political story about who they are, what their country is, and what they should be willing to die for.

Russian occupation is a project of demographic manipulation. In Crimea, opposition has been driven underground or silenced. Our panelists spoke of enforced disappearances, intimidation and torture, of families who think twice before speaking on the phone.

The Crimean Tatars – indigenous to the peninsula – feel this repression especially sharply. Many have been persecuted, imprisoned, or forced to flee, echoing the trauma of the mass deportation of 1944.

Alongside political pressure comes discrimination against belief and culture: a narrowing of space for non-Russian identities, and the message that coexistence without assimilation is not permitted.

The situation of the Crimean Tatars, including the religious discrimination they face, should matter to anyone who values their cultural or religious identity. 

What happens to children under occupation should trouble all of us. Speakers in Geneva described propaganda that begins early, even in kindergartens – children receive persistent messages that it is a noble thing to give your life for the Russian state, that those who refuse war are cowards, and that there is only one acceptable identity and one acceptable version of history – Russian.

Crimea has been turned into something closer to a military base than a normal society.

Young people face pressure to conform, to enlist, to keep silent and to grow up with core goal of joining the Russian army.

One of our panelists, Oleh a young man forced to leave Crimea after receiving a conscription letter into the Russian army, spoke of an information vacuum – of how hard it is for those still on the peninsula to access independent news, to speak freely online, or to hear perspectives beyond state television.

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The UK has not forgotten about Crimea – and we will not. We will continue to advocate for the human rights of all Ukrainians at the United Nations, and across the world.

Listening to Artem, and to Crimean Tatar voices who refuse to be erased, I was reminded that the struggle for Crimea is a struggle for the right to live freely as yourself: to speak your language, practice your faith, teach your children truth, and choose your future.

The UK will not forget Crimea.