Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev has praised the Czech Republic after it adopted a resolution recognizing the deportation of Crimean Tatars by Soviet authorities in 1944 as genocide.
In a December 18 vote, 70 of 74 senators supported the resolution, making the Czech Republic the seventh country to recognize the genocide, joining Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine.
"This decision morally supports Crimean Tatars and Ukraine and encourages other countries to follow suit," Mustafa Dzhemilev, the national leader of the Crimean Tatar people and a member of Ukraine's parliament, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service in an interview after the vote.
Eighty years ago, over three days from May 18 to May 20, 1944, Soviet security forces rounded up at least 200,000 Tatars on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and brutally sent them into exile in Central Asia.
Tens of thousands died during the deportation and under the harsh conditions of their first years in exile.
SEE ALSO: Crimean Tatars, Still Living In Shadow Of 1944, Invoke Fears Of Ethnic CleansingSoviet demographers in 1949 estimated there had been nearly 45,000 “excess deaths” among Crimean Tatars in the previous five years, while Crimean Tatar sources put the losses far higher.
Dzhemilev said the recognition means even more than usual for Crimean Tatars since it comes while Russia occupies Crimea -- it illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014 -- and continues its ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched almost three years ago.
"This is a really important event, especially for the Crimean Tatars, who are currently under occupation. This is moral support for them. And at the same time, this is moral support for Ukraine, which is currently in a state of war with our not very good neighbor," Dzhemilev said.
Dzhemilev noted the Czech government's readiness to use its influence to urge other countries to pass similar resolutions, especially those in Russia's traditional sphere of influence.
The deportation of the Crimean Tatars -- like those of several other Soviet ethnic populations around the same time -- was ordered by dictator Josef Stalin and overseen by notorious secret police head Lavrenty Beria.
It was followed by a campaign of de-Tatarization in Crimea, during which the culture of the Turkic, Muslim people was virtually wiped out on the peninsula.
Although most of the persecuted ethnic groups were allowed to return to their homelands after Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev condemned the population transfers in 1956, Crimean Tatars were not.
Only in the late 1980s, after more than four decades of exile, did the Soviet government condemn the deportation as a crime and lift the ban on their return.
SEE ALSO: Moscow Uses Divide-And-Conquer Strategy With Crimean TatarsWith Crimea occupied again, Dzhemilev said he understands Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's recent statement that Kyiv currently lacks the military strength to retake Crimea by force.
Still, he hopes European countries such as Germany and France will convince the United States, which will see an administration change in January when President-elect Donald Trump moves into the White House, to continue its support for Ukraine in repelling Russian forces, including from Crimea.