Unofficial translation into English

STATEMENT
of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on the recognition and condemnation of the crimes of the Soviet military administration in Zakarpattia in 1944-1946

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine strongly condemns the crimes against humanity committed in Zakarpattia in 1944-1946 by the Soviet military administration and the subsequent forced Sovietisation of the region.
In the autumn of 1944, following the retreat of Hungarian and German troops, Zakarpattia immediately came under the control of the Soviet military administration. The purpose of the occupation of Zakarpattia was to exterminate the nationally conscious population of the region, which had proclaimed its independence several years before the Soviet occupation, and to establish a military bridgehead for interventions in neighbouring states.
It was at this time, in 1944, that the Soviet military administration, acting through NKVD and SMERSH bodies and personnel, carried out mass unlawful detentions of male civilians in Zakarpattia aged 18 to 50 under the pretext of “mobilisation” for so-called labour camps. Thousands of civilian residents of Zakarpattia were deported to concentration camps within the GULAG system without court orders.
Historians estimate that, as a result of these deportations, tens of thousands of Zakarpattia residents died in forced labour camps from exhaustion, starvation, disease and inhuman conditions of detention. A substantial proportion of those deported never returned to their homes.
The Soviet authorities carried out targeted repression against figures associated with Carpatho-Ukraine, members of Ukrainian civic organisations, and Greek Catholic clergy and believers, who were persecuted for refusing to recognise the abolition of the Union of Uzhhorod. Members of the Hungarian, German, Romanian, Roma and other national minorities were also subjected to repression and deported en masse, regardless of whether they had personally been involved in war crimes during the Second World War. The Soviet machinery of repression terrorised prosperous peasants and members of the intelligentsia, who were subjected to dekulakisation and further repression, as well as cultural figures, educators and civic activists, thereby destroying Zakarpattia’s intellectual elite.
The systematic and widespread human rights violations committed by the Soviet military administration in Zakarpattia in 1944–1946, including unlawful mass deportations of civilians, forced labour, arbitrary detention without court orders and persecution on ethnic and religious grounds, bear the hallmarks of crimes against humanity under contemporary international law.
These criminal acts formed part of the communist totalitarian regime’s overall policy aimed at destroying national identity, religious freedom and civil society in territories that had come under the Kremlin’s control.
Recognising and condemning the crimes of the Soviet military administration in Zakarpattia is an important component of the process of decommunizing and decolonising Ukraine’s historical memory. It is also an act of justice for the thousands of victims of the communist totalitarian regime and their descendants.
As a democratic European state that recognises the rule of law and condemns all manifestations of totalitarianism, Ukraine considers it its moral duty to:
officially recognise the mass repression perpetrated by the Soviet military administration against the civilian population of Zakarpattia in 1944–1946, and, in particular, officially recognise the mass repression perpetrated by the Soviet military administration against ethnic Hungarian civilians, the so-called “málenkij robot” (“a little work”), as crimes committed by the communist totalitarian regime;
condemn the practice of forced deportations, extrajudicial executions and persecution on ethnic, religious and social grounds carried out by NKVD and SMERSH bodies and personnel in Zakarpattia;
honour the memory of the victims of Soviet repression in Zakarpattia through the installation of memorial markers, scholarly research and educational programmes;
promote the publication of archival materials relating to the events of 1944–1946 in order to restore historical truth;
support research to document the crimes of the communist totalitarian regime in Zakarpattia and other regions of Ukraine;
ensure that these historical events are included in educational curricula in order to develop an objective understanding of the totalitarian past and prevent similar crimes from recurring in the future;
emphasise that the Russian Federation, which continues to wage armed aggression against Ukraine, is committing crimes in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine analogous to those of the communist totalitarian regime, including large-scale repression against civilians.
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine calls on the international community, academic institutions and archival institutions of partner states to cooperate in restoring the historical truth about the crimes of Soviet totalitarianism committed in Zakarpattia and other regions of Ukraine.
Recognition of the crimes of Soviet totalitarianism must serve as a warning today to prevent the crimes of the past from recurring, particularly in efforts to counter the current policy of the Russian Federation, which replicates the criminal approaches of the communist totalitarian regime and is conducting a similar campaign of repression. As in the 1940s, the Kremlin seeks to seize all of Ukraine in order to secure a common border with the states of Central Europe and to intimidate and control them while retaining the ability to launch a rapid invasion, as in 1956 and 1968, when the USSR occupied Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
The civilised world must firmly and unreservedly combat criminal totalitarian policies, not only by honouring the victims of the past, but also by preventing further victims today - by supporting Ukraine in its struggle against the aggressor state, helping to restore a comprehensive, just and lasting peace for Ukraine, holding the aggressor state and its war criminals accountable, and ensuring justice for the victims of Russian aggression.