At its session on May 18, members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine honored the memory of victims of the genocide of Crimean Tatar people with a moment of silence.

In his opening statement the Head of Government reminded that day back in 1944 Stalin's regime had commenced the deportation of the Crimean Tatars from the Crimea, as a result about 200 thousand people were forcibly evicted from their native land to other USSR republics. Almost half of them died en route due to the inhuman transportation conditions.

"The deportation, the genocide of the Crimean Tatars is a huge tragedy in the history of our State and our people", stressed Volodymyr Groysman.

The Prime Minister highlighted these days in the Ukrainian Crimea there took place suppressing of human rights and freedoms of the Crimean Tatar people in their native land by criminal occupation regime that had illegally annexed the peninsula and stressed the unacceptability of such actions.

"The struggle is underway, the Crimean Tatars in Crimea have been deprived of the right to their culture, freedom, everything connected with these people is being oppressed, people are being imprisoned. The XXI century, until recently no one could have imagined that all that would become a reality", said Volodymyr Groysman.