Pro-Russian rebels attack key port, Ukraine says at least 30 dead

[mick silver]

Pro-Russian rebels attack key port, Ukraine says at least 30 deadhttp://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/d/0c/d0c3eb8ca18907492a4b337b5cec5193.jpeg (http://www.reuters.com/) By Alessandra Prentice and Pavel Polityuk 59 minutes ago











http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/TYbShMknu2G.bWfAwMc.SA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTM3NztpbD1wbGFuZTtweG 9mZj01MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz02NzA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/e47c13a1df6924036c0f6a7067009d11.jpg (http://news.yahoo.com/ten-killed-rebel-shelling-east-ukrainian-city-mariupol-092215090.html#)
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Burned cars on a destroyed parking site in a residential area in Mariupol, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015. A crowded open-air market in Ukraine's strategically important coastal city of Mariupol came under rocket fire Saturday morning, killing at least 10 people, regional police said. Heavy fighting in the region in the autumn raised fears that Russian-backed separatist forces would try to establish a land link between Russia and Crimea. Pro-Russian separatist forces have positions within 10 kilometers (six miles) from Mariupol's eastern outskirts. (AP Photo/Sergey Vaganov)





By Alessandra Prentice and Pavel Polityuk
Related Stories


Putin blames Kiev for fighting, civilian deaths in Ukraine (http://news.yahoo.com/putin-blamed-kiev-fighting-deaths-civilians-ukraine-113206301.html) Reuters
Five civilians dead as fresh battles rock east Ukraine's Donetsk (http://news.yahoo.com/five-civilians-dead-fresh-battles-rock-east-ukraines-081659212.html) AFP
Russia, Ukraine agree pullback line for heavy arms (http://news.yahoo.com/russian-fm-says-ukraine-peace-talks-focus-frontline-085305825.html) Associated Press
Pro-Russian rebels reject peace deal, launch new offensive (http://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-rebels-24-fighters-killed-rockets-airport-092449913.html) Associated Press
Kremlin says Kiev's actions damage prospects for Ukraine summit: RIA (http://news.yahoo.com/kremlin-says-kievs-actions-damage-prospects-ukraine-summit-090244589.html) Reuters







KIEV (Reuters) - Pro-Russian rebels launched an offensive against the strategic port of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, prompting the European Union's foreign policy chief to warn of a further "grave deterioration" in EU-Russian relations.
Mariupol's city administration said the rebels had killed at least 30 people and injured 83 others in the offensive by firing rockets from long-range GRAD missile systems.
The city of 500,000 on the Sea of Azov is vital for eastern Ukraine's steel and grain exports and also straddles the coastal route from the Russian border to Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula in southern Ukraine seized by Russia last March.
President Petro Poroshenko, pledging to protect Ukrainian territory, said he would convene an emergency meeting of his country's security council on Sunday.
"Today an offensive was launched on Mariupol. This will be the best possible monument to all our dead," Russia's RIA news agency quoted rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko as saying at a memorial ceremony in the separatist-held city of Donetsk.
He said the separatists also planned to encircle Debaltseve, a town north-east of Donetsk, in the next few days, Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.
Eastern Ukraine has seen an escalation of fighting in recent days that Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed on Kiev. The rebels have ruled out more peace talks.
Poroshenko responded angrily to the fighting in Mariupol, a city the rebels tried to capture last autumn before a fragile ceasefire was agreed in eastern Ukraine. Kiev fears the rebels want to build a land bridge from Russia to Crimea.
"We are for peace, but we accept the challenge of the enemy. We will protect our motherland," Poroshenko said in a statement.
EU APPEAL
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini condemned the Mariupol attack and urged Moscow to lean on the rebel leaders.
"I ... call openly upon Russia to use its considerable influence over separatist leaders and to stop any form of military, political or financial support," she said.
Moscow denies sending forces and weapons to east Ukraine, despite what Kiev and the West say is irrefutable proof. Last week Poroshenko said Russia had 9,000 troops stationed in his country and demanded their immediate withdrawal.
The nine-month conflict, in which more than 5,000 people have been killed, has triggered the biggest crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the Cold War.
Saturday's attack on Mariupol started in the early morning, said pensioner Leonid Vasilenko, 76, who lives in an eastern suburb of the city.
"The walls were shaking, the window frames were shaking, paint started to crumble off the house," he said by telephone.
"I hid in the basement. What else can you do? I took the dog and the cat. In the basement you could hear the earth tremble."
(Additional reporting by Lina Kushch, Alexander Winning in Moscow and Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Editing by Gareth Jones)


Politics & Government
Unrest, Conflicts & War
eastern Ukraine
Mariupol


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View Comments (284)

[mick silver]

I was wondering just how much longer before the USA put boots on the ground are do we start with drones

[mick silver]

one of many comments , most see world war 3 starting there ... If im right this is the prelude to WW3 they all start off slowly. If im right we've been taking steps to WW3 since the early 70's. If im right something has to give eventually. China is building up its blue water Navy to take control of the vast resources in the South China Sea. America is pivoting more resources military and financial to the pacific region. Japan had been allowed to expand its military forces to not only protect itself but to also protect allies. Everything changes nothing stays the same. More resources to Ukraine non lethal for the time being but lethal soon enough.

[old steel]

If it escalates i'm going over to fight with my wife's relatives.

Then watch the fuck out!

[midnight rambler]

If it escalates i'm going over to fight with my wife's relatives.



Why are you upset with your wife's relatives?? ???

[Dogman]

If it escalates i'm going over to fight with my wife's relatives.

Then watch the fuck out!




Why are you upset with your wife's relatives?? ???

Thought the same, did he mean with or against!

;)

I think with!

But against whom!

[old steel]

This is the first year in living memory when they didn't send over some Stolichnaya Gold Vodka for Christmas.

Of course it's really not their fault due to all the sanctions, so on second thought perhaps i will take the fight to who is responsible for this outrage.

Someone is going to pay for this, count on it.
(http://russianvodka.com/store/)

[mick silver]

come on old I still have a pint are two left of some moon shine

[Hitch]

I was wondering just how much longer before the USA put boots on the ground are do we start with drones

I just hope to reach the age of 45 before ww3 and the draft. They love to snatch single guys. Plus, my 3 brothers are married with kids. I won't even need the draft to sign up and keep them from going to war.

[Glass]

I just hope to reach the age of 45 before ww3 and the draft. They love to snatch single guys. Plus, my 3 brothers are married with kids. I won't even need the draft to sign up and keep them from going to war.

The Ukraine Bolshi's just drafted all able bodies up to age 60.

I was well pleased when I got past the age of drafting. Remember always that the draft is in fact voluntary, but it's a bit like income taxes in that way.

[Hitch]

The Ukraine Bolshi's just drafted all able bodies up to age 60.

I was well pleased when I got past the age of drafting. Remember always that the draft is in fact voluntary, but it's a bit like income taxes in that way.

Hopefully it doesn't ever get that bad for a draft, but seems like it's heading that direction. Something is going to burst, I don't know if it's the economy or war, or what. That would be a good topic for discussion.

I just know I'll enlist if there's a draft. There's a rule here they can't draft brothers (so I'm told).

[Glass]

I just know I'll enlist if there's a draft. There's a rule here they can't draft brothers (so I'm told).

I know this makes a good storyline for a movie, but being it was a movie from Hollywood, I'd like to know if that is true. Would be good in a way.

[Hitch]

I know this makes a good storyline for a movie, but being it was a movie from Hollywood, I'd like to know if that is actually true.

It's true, or should be true...so I'm told. They can't draft more than one person from a family. There was a story, I'm trying to remember, the Sullivan brothers I think? 3 of them were drafted, and none returned home. I think that was in the civil war they changed the rule.

[Glass]

I remember a recent movie and it was set in Vietnam. Had Hanks in it IIRC.

[ShortJohnSilver]

Some think that the idea is for Russia to be lured into a tiny bit of war, that then allows NATO/USA to probe their military for new equipment and new tactics.

[osoab]

So where does the guy who speaks English hail from? At :20 in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW1JdOXdJkU&x-yt-ts=1421914688&x-yt-cl=84503534

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW1JdOXdJkU&x-yt-ts=1421914688&x-yt-cl=84503534

[mick silver]

http://www.gnosticliberationfront.com/Image13.jpgukraine 1933

[mick silver]

The Ukrainian Genocide of 1932-1933 http://www.ukrainegenocide.com/history.cfm

[mick silver]

Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, set in motion events designed to cause a famine in the Ukraine to destroy the people there seeking independence from his rule. As a result, an estimated 7 to 10 million persons perished in this farming area, known as the breadbasket of Europe, with the people deprived of the food they had grown with their own hands.

The Ukrainian independence movement actually predated the Stalin era.
Ukraine, which measures about the size of France, had been under the domination of the Imperial Czars of Russia for 200 years. With the collapse of the Czarist rule in March 1917, it seemed the long-awaited opportunity for independence had finally arrived. Optimistic Ukrainians declared their country to be an independent People's Republic and re-established the ancient capital city of Kiev as the seat of government.

However, their newfound freedom was short-lived. By the end of 1917, Vladimir Lenin, the first leader of the Soviet Union, sought to reclaim all of the areas formerly controlled by the Czars, especially the fertile Ukraine. As a result, four years of chaos and conflict followed in which Ukrainian national troops fought against Lenin's Red Army, and also against Russia's White Army (troops still loyal to the Czar) as well as other invading forces including the Germans and Poles.

By 1921, the battles ended with a Soviet victory while the western part of Ukraine was divided-up among Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. The Soviets immediately began shipping out huge amounts of grain to feed the hungry people of Moscow and other big Russian cities. Coincidentally, a drought occurred in Ukraine, resulting in widespread starvation and a surge of popular resentment against Lenin and the Soviets.

To lessen the deepening resentment, Lenin relaxed his grip on the country, stopped taking out so much grain, and even encouraged a free-market exchange of goods. This breath of fresh air renewed the people's interest in independence and resulted in a national revival movement celebrating their unique folk customs, language, poetry, music, arts, and Ukrainian orthodox religion.
But when Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin, one of the most ruthless humans ever to hold power, succeeded him. To Stalin, the burgeoning national revival movement and continuing loss of Soviet influence in Ukraine was completely unacceptable. To crush the people's free spirit, he began to employ the same methods he had successfully used within the Soviet Union.
Thus, beginning in 1929, over 5,000 Ukrainian scholars, scientists, cultural and religious leaders were arrested after being falsely accused of plotting an armed revolt. Those arrested were either shot without a trial or deported to prison camps in remote areas of Russia.

Stalin also imposed the Soviet system of land management known as collectivization. This resulted in the seizure of all privately owned farmlands and livestock, in a country where 80 percent of the people were traditional village farmers. Among those farmers, was a class of people called Kulaks by the Communists. They were formerly wealthy farmers that had owned 24 or more acres, or had employed farm workers. Stalin believed any future insurrection would be led by the Kulaks, thus he proclaimed a policy aimed at "liquidating the Kulaks as a class."

Declared "enemies of the people," the Kulaks were left homeless and without a single possession as everything were taken from them, even their pots and pans. It was also forbidden by law for anyone to aid dispossessed Kulak families. Some researchers estimate that ten million persons were thrown out of their homes, put on railroad box cars and deported to "special settlements" in the wilderness of Siberia during this era, with up to a third of them perishing amid the frigid living conditions. Men and older boys, along with childless women and unmarried girls, also became slave-workers in Soviet-run mines and big industrial projects.

Back in Ukraine, once-proud village farmers were by now reduced to the level of rural factory workers on large collective farms. Anyone refusing to participate in the compulsory collectivization system was simply denounced as a Kulak and deported.

A propaganda campaign was started utilizing eager young Communist activists who spread out among the country folk attempting to shore up the people's support for the Soviet regime. However, their attempts failed. Despite the propaganda, ongoing coercion and threats, the people continued to resist through acts of rebellion and outright sabotage. They burned their own homes rather than surrender them. They took back their property, tools and farm animals from the collectives, harassed and even assassinated local Soviet authorities. This ultimately put them in direct conflict with the power and authority of Joseph Stalin.

Soviet troops and secret police were rushed in to put down the rebellion.
They confronted rowdy farmers by firing warning shots above the their heads.
In some cases, however, they fired directly at the people. Stalin's secret police (GPU, predecessor of the KGB) also went to work waging a campaign of terror designed to break the people's will. GPU squads systematically attacked and killed uncooperative farmers.

But the resistance continued. The people simply refused to become cogs in the Soviet farm machine and remained stubbornly determined to return to their pre-Soviet farming lifestyle. Some refused to work at all, leaving the wheat and oats to rot in unharvested fields. Once again, they were placing themselves in conflict with Stalin.

In Moscow, Stalin responded to their unyielding defiance by dictating a policy that would deliberately cause mass starvation and result in the deaths of millions.

By mid 1932, nearly 75 percent of the farms in Ukraine had been forcibly collectivized. On Stalin's orders, mandatory quotas of foodstuffs to be shipped out to the Soviet Union were drastically increased in August, October and again in January 1933, until there was simply no food remaining to feed the people of the Ukraine.

Much of the hugely abundant wheat crop harvested by the Ukrainians that year was dumped on the foreign market to generate cash to aid Stalin's Five Year Plan for the modernization of the Soviet Union and also to help finance his massive military buildup. If the wheat had remained in Ukraine, it was estimated to have been enough to feed all of the people there for up to two years.

Ukrainian Communists urgently appealed to Moscow for a reduction in the grain quotas and also asked for emergency food aid. Stalin responded by denouncing them and rushed in over 100,000 fiercely loyal Russian soldiers to purge the Ukrainian Communist Party. The Soviets then sealed off the borders of Ukraine, preventing any food from entering, in effect turning the country into a gigantic concentration camp. Soviet police troops inside Ukraine also went house to house seizing any stored up food, leaving farm families without a morsel. All food was considered to be the "sacred"
property of the State. Anyone caught stealing State property, even an ear of corn or stubble of wheat, could be shot or imprisoned for not less than ten years.

Starvation quickly ensued throughout Ukraine, with the most vulnerable, children and the elderly, first feeling the effects of malnutrition. The once-smiling young faces of children vanished forever amid the constant pain of hunger. It gnawed away at their bellies, which became grossly swollen, while their arms and legs became like sticks as they slowly starved to death.

Mothers in the countryside sometimes tossed their emaciated children onto passing railroad cars traveling toward cities such as Kiev in the hope someone there would take pity. But in the cities, children and adults who had already flocked there from the countryside were dropping dead in the streets, with their bodies carted away in horse-drawn wagons to be dumped in mass graves. Occasionally, people lying on the sidewalk who were thought to be dead, but were actually still alive, were also carted away and buried.

While police and Communist Party officials remained quite well fed, desperate Ukrainians ate leaves off bushes and trees, killed dogs, cats, frogs, mice and birds then cooked them. Others, gone mad with hunger, resorted to cannibalism, with parents sometimes even eating their own children.

Meanwhile, nearby Soviet-controlled granaries were said to be bursting at the seams from huge stocks of 'reserve' grain, which had not yet been shipped out of Ukraine. In some locations, grain and potatoes were piled in the open, protected by barbed wire and armed GPU guards who shot down anyone attempting to take the food. Farm animals, considered necessary for production, were allowed to be fed, while the people living among them had absolutely nothing to eat.

By the spring of 1933, the height of the famine, an estimated 25,000 persons died every day in Ukraine. Entire villages were perishing. In Europe, America and Canada, persons of Ukrainian descent and others responded to news reports of the famine by sending in food supplies. But Soviet authorities halted all food shipments at the border. It was the official policy of the Soviet Union to deny the existence of a famine and thus to refuse any outside assistance. Anyone claiming that there was in fact a famine was accused of spreading anti-Soviet propaganda. Inside the Soviet Union, a person could be arrested for even using the word 'famine' or 'hunger' or 'starvation' in a sentence.

The Soviets bolstered their famine denial by duping members of the foreign press and international celebrities through carefully staged photo opportunities in the Soviet Union and the Ukraine. The writer George Bernard Shaw, along with a group of British socialites, visited the Soviet Union and came away with a favorable impression, which he disseminated, to the world.
Former French Premier Edouard Herriot was given a five-day stage-managed tour of Ukraine, viewing spruced-up streets in Kiev and inspecting a 'model'
collective farm. He also came away with a favorable impression and even declared there was indeed no famine.

Back in Moscow, six British engineers working in the Soviet Union were arrested and charged with sabotage, espionage and bribery, and threatened with the death penalty. The sensational show trial that followed was actually a cynical ruse to deflect the attention of foreign journalists from the famine. Journalists were warned they would be shut out of the trial completely if they wrote news stories about the famine. Most of the foreign press corps yielded to the Soviet demand and either didn't cover the famine or wrote stories sympathetic to the official Soviet propaganda line that it didn't exist. Among those was Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Walter Duranty of the New York Times who sent one dispatch stating "...all talk of famine now is ridiculous."

Outside the Soviet Union, governments of the West adopted a passive attitude toward the famine, although most of them had become aware of the true suffering in Ukraine through confidential diplomatic channels. In November 1933, the United States, under its new president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, even chose to formally recognized Stalin's Communist government and also negotiated a sweeping new trade agreement. The following year, the pattern of denial in the West culminated with the admission of the Soviet Union into the League of Nations.

Stalin's Five Year Plan for the modernization of the Soviet Union depended largely on the purchase of massive amounts of manufactured goods and technology from Western nations. Those nations were unwilling to disrupt lucrative trade agreements with the Soviet Union in order to pursue the matter of the famine- genocide.

By the end of 1933, nearly 25 percent of the population of the Ukraine, including three million children, had perished. The Kulaks as a class were destroyed and an entire nation of village farmers had been decimated. With his immediate objectives now achieved, Stalin allowed food distribution to resume inside Ukraine and the famine subsided. However, political persecutions and further round-ups of 'enemies' continued unchecked in the years following the famine, interrupted only in June 1941 when Nazi troops stormed into the country. Hitler's troops, like all previous invaders, arrived in the Ukraine to rob the breadbasket of Europe and simply replaced one reign of terror with another.

United Human Rights Council: www.unitedhumanrights.org/stalin_famine.htm

[slvrbugjim]

My wife is from Ukraine. The Ukrainians are about to get to feel what it is like when Jews take over your country, just like Russia in 1917 through WWII, they will be the sacrificial lamb to start a war with Russia. The 2 million that were executed by the Jew invaders of the Revolution of 1917 was in fact a Reprisal from when Catherine The Great had the courage and balls to cast them to the Pale and take her country back from these monsters.

Putin knows this he kicked out the Rothschild Jewish Oligarchs and re established his country as Christian. This really pissed off the Jewish media and the Zionists in general. By not allowing the Zionists to destroy Syria was the last straw. Oil price drops and currency wars are just the beginning. Putin will be vilified by the Jewish run media and he knows it.

[mick silver]

it would not take a lot to do this again... Outside the Soviet Union, governments of the West adopted a passive attitude toward the famine, although most of them had become aware of the true suffering in Ukraine through confidential diplomatic channels. In November 1933, the United States, under its new president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, even chose to formally recognized Stalin's Communist government and also negotiated a sweeping new trade agreement. The following year, the pattern of denial in the West culminated with the admission of the Soviet Union into the League of Nations.

[mick silver]

Ukrainian port city divided after deadly rocket attack
http://news.yahoo.com/ukrainian-port-city-divided-deadly-rocket-attack-192349819.html

[midnight rambler]

longer version of video posted earlier showing more destruction, apt. buildings hit hard (apparently intentionally) -


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiwIUsX63Hk

[Cebu_4_2]

It's true, or should be true...so I'm told. They can't draft more than one person from a family. There was a story, I'm trying to remember, the Sullivan brothers I think? 3 of them were drafted, and none returned home. I think that was in the civil war they changed the rule.

They are not supposed to include family in the same area, say if you have 2 bothers they go to different places and you the thirs so when the shit comes down chances are there will be 1 living person to be called back.

Now this is a bankers war.

[slvrbugjim]

Who would benefit from this attack, not the "rebels" certainly Porkosheko would benefit to demonize Putin. False flag with real people dying with Zionists calling the shots

[Hitch]

They are not supposed to include family in the same area, say if you have 2 bothers they go to different places and you the thirs so when the shit comes down chances are there will be 1 living person to be called back.

Yes, found out that was because of the Sullivan brothers in WWII. 5 brothers all served on the same ship, and it sank, and they all died.

However, I think multiple brothers can enlist if they want to, but they can only draft 1 person from an immediate family. I'm trying to confirm that online but failing. I'm pretty sure that it's true though.

[Neuro]

It's true, or should be true...so I'm told. They can't draft more than one person from a family. There was a story, I'm trying to remember, the Sullivan brothers I think? 3 of them were drafted, and none returned home. I think that was in the civil war they changed the rule.
For WWIII they change the rule again. Think of Germany 1945 any man and boy able to walk were put into the defense of Germany...

[mick silver]

Russia warns West not to blackmail it over Ukrainehttp://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/d/0c/d0c3eb8ca18907492a4b337b5cec5193.jpeg (http://www.reuters.com/) By Gabriela Baczynska 7 hours ago




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Pro-Moscow separatists, backed by what NATO says are Russian troops, have launched an offensive in southeastern Ukraine and President Barack Obama said Washington was considering all options short of military action to isolate Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied any Russian involvement in the fighting and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of whipping up anti-Russian hysteria to justify extending economic sanctions against Moscow.
"Instead of increasing pressure on those who refuse to engage in dialogue to resolve the conflict peacefully, we see renewed talks about blackmailing Russia economically," RIA news agency quoted Peskov as saying.
"Russia has never agreed with such threats and such threats and blackmail have never led to anything and never will ... renewed threats of increased economic pressure on Russia are an absolutely destructive, unjustified and ultimately short-sighted approach."
Lavrov said the separatists in Ukraine were responding to attacks by government forces and the only way forward was through direct dialogue.
"We see attempts to derail the peace process and attempts again and again by the Kiev leadership to solve the problem by using force to suppress the southeast. These attempts lead nowhere," Lavrov told a news conference.
The European Union has called an emergency meeting of foreign ministers of its 28 member states for Thursday.
"We expect our Western partners ... not to do anything that gives the Kiev authorities the impression that all their actions automatically will win support in the West," Lavrov said.
He accused the West of "chronic" finger-pointing at Moscow over the Ukraine conflict, in which more than 5,000 people have been killed in more than nine months of fighting.
Lavrov said it would have been naive to believe the separatists would accept being shelled by government forces without responding.
He said the rebels had started actions to "eliminate the positions from which the Ukrainian armed forces had shelled populated areas with heavy weapons".
(Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly and Polina Devitt, Writing by Timothy Heritage, editing by Elizabeth Piper)


Politics & Government
Sergei Lavrov
Ukraine
Russia


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Russia turned Crimea into a military base: Tatar leader
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Flags waving in front of the Soldier and Sailor monument during celebrations in Sevastopol on March 18, 2015, to mark one year since Russia's President Vladimir Putin signed off on the annexation of Crimea (AFP Photo/Yuri Lashov)









United Nations (United States) (AFP) - In just one year, Crimea has gone from being a picturesque tourist destination in Ukraine to a Russian military base that will likely end up hosting nuclear weapons, the United Nations heard Thursday.
Prominent Soviet-era dissident Mustafa Dzhemilev, spiritual leader of Crimea's minority Tatar ethnic group, also said that the rights situation on the peninsula had deteriorated drastically since Moscow took over Crimea a year ago, sparking condemnation in the West.
"Crimea that used to be a tourist area is being turned into a military base... and the most alarming is that Crimea is likely to return into a nuclear weapons base," Dzhemilev told a press conference at UN headquarters in New York.
"There are no freedoms and rights in Crimea right now... those who stand up for their beliefs, and first of all for their willingness to go back to become part of Ukraine, are being repressed."
Between 10,000 and 15,000 Tatars -- a minority Muslim community with a distinct language and culture -- have fled Crimea since the Russian flag was raised there.
Dzhemilev was invited to the UN by Lithuania, a member of the UN Security Council, to attend an informal closed meeting on Crimea's human rights situation.
The meeting was boycotted by Russia, which considers the Crimea an integral part of its territory.
Besides Russia, two other members of the Security Council -- China and Venezuela -- did not send a representative to the meeting.


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