Several hundred people marched through Kyiv today, as part of the commemoration of the brutal deportation of the entire population of Crimean Tatars to Central Asia 70 years ago.
Many Tatars later returned to Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula that broke away from Ukraine and joined Russia in March.
Tatars strongly support the new Ukrainian transitional government and oppose Russia's annexation of Crimea.
The Kiev march passed without any incidents.
At the same time, the Crimean leaders, who have the support of Moscow, today banned the main march of the Tatars in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea. Some Tatars instead gathered not far from the mosque on the outskirts of the city.
In May 1944, shortly after Russian troops drove German forces out of Crimea, Soviet leader Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin denounced the Tatars for collaborating with the enemy and ordered their deportation.
About 250.000 Tatars were transported by freight trains to Central Asia, where more than 40 percent of them died of starvation and disease.
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