UNESCO confirms its consistent support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine and stresses the necessity of further monitoring of the situation in the temporarily occupied Crimea within UNESCO’s fields of competence. This emerges clearly from the Decision “Follow-up of the situation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Ukraine)”, adopted on 16 October 2019 in the framework of the 207th session of the UNESCO Executive Board in Paris.

The Board examined the report of the UNESCO Director-General on the abovementioned issue multi which states the ongoing deterioration of the situation in the peninsula in the spheres of education, science, culture, information access and mass media; provides concrete facts of brutal violations by the Russian occupational authorities of human rights and freedoms, the fundamental principles and norms of the Organization, in particular concerning impediment to the free dissemination of information and media activities, numerous cases of persecution and illicit arrests of journalists as well as devastating actions that endanger Ukrainian cultural heritage properties.

Following the Decision, the first phase of implementing of UNESCO’s direct monitoring mechanism of the situation in the temporary occupied Crimea will be continued. To date, the UNESCO experts made two visits to Ukraine, aimed at collecting information on the situation in the fields of science and media development in the temporary occupied peninsula.
The results of the monitoring are to be summarized in the next report of the UNESCO Director-General on the issue to be presented at the 210th session of the Executive Board in October 2020.