Following the submission of a tough new resolution on Crimea to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday 31 October the Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Pavlo Klimkin is calling on the media and other partners to focus on the plight of the Crimean people and in so doing build support for the countries new resolution to the UN.

On submitting the new draft resolution "Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (Ukraine)”, Pavlo Klimkin, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, said:

“This new tougher resolution is absolutely necessary as no single provision of our previous resolution has yet been implemented by Russia. This has been confirmed in a recent report from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The stronger document will not only strengthen the provisions of the 2016 Resolution – it will contain important new elements”.

“But resolutions at the UN alone are not enough, the world must better understand what is happening in Crimea and call a spade a spade.  That means calling Russia out on its criminal behaviour and systematic abuse of human rights on the peninsula”.

“Everyone in the free world, not just diplomats and politicians, must better understand what Russia is doing.  For that reason, at the same time as submitting our resolution, we are launching #CrimeaIsBleeding as a way of telling more people what is happening in Crimea”.

“We cannot do this alone so we are asking our partners, and the media, in particular, to help us tell the stories of ordinary people who suffer daily under a brutal totalitarian regime of occupation – for the first time in Europe since the end of the Second World War”.

Akhtem Chiygoz, the Deputy Chair of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, who was illegally imprisoned by Russian occupants for almost three years, has given the campaign his full support at a press briefing in Kyiv to announce the new Resolution.

Making a specific appeal to the media for their support Pavlo Klimkin added:

“In a democracy, it does not just matter what politicians and diplomats know and think, what really matters is what the people know and think. And ordinary people from across Europe and North America must now better understand that on daily basis ‘Crimea is bleeding’. In order to achieve this, we are appealing to the media to help tell the true and often harrowing stories that are resulting every day under a totalitarian occupying regime in a twenty-first-century European country.”

The MFA of Ukraine, between now and Christmas, will work closely with the Crimean community and the Ukrainian and international media as well as partners to bring the plight of the Crimean people to light.

For further details on the new draft resolution and to find out more about #CrimeaIsBleeding contact MFA Press Service.