Water supply of Crimea: what is behind the statements of the occupants?

The occupants complain to the UN about the blocking of the North Crimean Canal, but at the same time have changed their minds to provide the peninsula with water.

We'll talk about this in the 48th release of the #LIBERATECRIMEA blog.

Last week  started with another searches. On Monday, August 31, Russian security forces carried out mass searches in the houses of the Crimean Tatars in the Nizhnegorsk and Sovetsky regions and in the village Solnechnaya Dolina in Sudak of the occupied Crimea. Four people were detained and all were taken to the FSB department in Simferopol "for interrogation." Later they were released on recognizance not to leave. They are all charged with Article 205.6 of the Criminal Code of Russia ("failure to report about a crime").

Pay attention! This is a new article, according to which they began to detain our compatriots. Imagine someone contacted you on Facebook or website "Classmates", asked to acccept friendship, but  you have to inform the FSB otherwise … a fine or a prison …Conducting new searches, the occupants do not forget about the old political prisoners. On Monday, August 31, the "state prosecution" requested for the defendants in the second Bakhchisarai "Hizb ut-Tahrir case" – Marlen Asanov, Server Zekiryaev, Memet Belyalov, Seyran Saliiev, Ernest Ametov, Timur Ibragimov, Edem Smailov and Server Mustafaev from 15 up to 21 years of imprisonment in a strict-regime colony. And do you know why?

They only gathered in the mosque for prayers, had religious literature in their homes, but not prohibited in the Russian Federation, provided assistance to the families of political prisoners…

In fact, these actions (searches, interrogations, courts) are nothing but deliberate policy of the occupants in order to intimidate inconvenient people, as well as to convince the international community that there is allegedly a danger of religious extremism in Crimea. The occupants are trying to show the public that the members of Hizb ut-Tahrir are terrorists. And since terrorism is the number one problem in the world, it is a tool for manipulation on international platforms, which the Russian Federation is trying to use.

But will she succeed?

The situation with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in the occupied Crimea is also not improving. The Ukrainians appealed to the ECHR with a statement to suppress the actions of the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea aimed at expelling the OCU from the center of its Crimean diocese – Cathedral of the Holy Apostolic Princes Volodymyr and Olga, as well as demolishing the OCU church in Yevpatoria. However, the European Court of Human Rights refused to introduce immediate interim measures in the interests of protecting the rights of the Crimean Diocese of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, since the actions of the Russian Federation "did not entail the risk of serious and irreparable harm."

But what kind of irreparable harm should be?

Perhaps the occupants should start arresting the parishioners of the OCU?

Meanwhile, the occupants are trying to demonstrate that they are communicating with the UN. Last week, State Duma deputy, ex-prosecutor of the occupied Crimea Natalia Poklonskaya said that her status as a representative of Crimeans in the Russian Parliament was recognized by the UN. In addition, she claimed that she had been offered cooperation with the Department of Field Operations and Technical Cooperation of the United Nations Office in providing additional information on the issue of water supply into the occupied Crimea.

But was it really so? Or are the occupants see again what they want to see?

Press Secretary of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Rupert Colville denied Natalia Poklonskaya's statement. He stated that the High Commissioner had indeed received a letter expressing concern about the water supply to the AR of Crimea. Due to the lack of access of OHCHR to Crimea, the Director of the Field Operations and Technical Cooperation Division of OHCHR responded to Poklonskaya with a request to provide relevant information directly to the human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine. Mr. Colville once again emphasized that the position of OHCHR on the status of Crimea remains unchanged and is based on UN General Assembly resolution 68/262 on the territorial integrity of Ukraine. That is, no one recognized anyone and no one offered any cooperation to anyone.

Whom are the occupants trying to deceive? Crimeans?  Russians? Or do they comfort themselves?

Meanwhile, the situation  with water supply continues to deteriorate. And instead of solving this issue as an occupying country, the authorities of the peninsula decided to send a complaint to the UN because of the blocking of the North Crimean Canal by Ukraine.

Aleksandr Molokhov, head of the Working Group on International Legal Issues at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Crimea under the President of the Russian Federation, even said that "the cannibalistic position of Ukrainian radicals on this issue should be subjected to total obstruction at the international arena, including by Russian delegates.

"But what does Ukraine have to do with it?

After all, all the responsibility for the peninsula lies on the occupying country – the Russian Federation. What is the Russian government hoping for? At the same time, the Federal Agency for Water Resources of the Russian Federation stated that the transfer of water from Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula is a very expensive project, and dry years are also observed in the Krasnodar Territory and Rostov Region.

The Russian department noted that the project of desalination of the Black Sea water and the creation of the so-called "fleet of aircraft to cause rain" are no less expensive projects. And in order to use underground and surface waters, additional purification is required.

What did the occupants want to say with this statement?

Was it a hint that no one would supply water to Crimea?

However, on September 2, the "head" of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, met with President Putin, during which the interlocutors discussed the situation with water in the city. Putin has promised to help with funding, as this is a "fundamental" issue at the moment. And even earlier, Putin said that the issue of water in Crimea needs to be solved.

So, what will the occupants do with the water supply of the peninsula in the end? Here both the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian society need to be attentive; otherwise a thirsty bear will want to seize the Kakhovka Reservoir.

Fight for Crimea!

Fight for Ukraine!

The more people know the truth about Crimea, the more chances of liberating it!

Eskender Bariiev,
The Head of the Board of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, 
a member of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people