Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine took note of the UN Secretary-General report ‘Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine’, which was submitted pursuant to the UN General Assembly Resolution 75/192 under the same title adopted at the request of Ukraine.

Pursuant to the UN General Assembly resolutions, the report clearly defines the Russian Federation as an occupying Power, and its ‘public authorities’ on the territory of the temporarily occupied Ukrainian peninsula - as ‘occupation authorities’.

The UN Secretary-General confirms numerous cases of torture, including the use of sexual violence, illegal arrests, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, violations of the freedom of religion, expression, and peaceful assembly by the Federal Security Service and other Russian occupation authorities.

The Russian Federation continues to blatantly violate international law and illegally convict Ukrainian citizens; transfers illegally detained Ukrainian citizens from the temporarily occupied peninsula to Russia.

The document also describes an ongoing relocation of the population from Russia into the temporarily occupied Crimea; gross violations of the language rights of Ukrainians and members of the Crimean Tatar people; conscription of Crimea residents into the Russian army and judicial prosecution of draft evaders; persecution of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine where peaceful religious followers are being targets of extremism accusations.

The UN Secretary-General reiterates his call on the Russian Federation to end all the gross human rights violations and to respect all its obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights.

It is also noted that in violation of the International Court of Justice ruling, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people remains banned and its Chairman Refat Chubarov was illegally convicted by the occupation administration.

It is stated that Russia continues to ignore the UN General Assembly Resolution 75/192 and does not provide access to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission to the temporarily occupied Crimea; that the media are persecuted and punished even for printing the UN Secretary-General's reports on the human rights situation on the peninsula under Russian occupation, which is a shameful and indecent behavior for a UN member state.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine considers the UN Secretary General report ‘Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine’ as another effort of the international community to de-occupy Crimea, as fixed in the Joint Declaration of the International Crimea Platform Participants.