Recognition of the genocide of the Ingush people

The genocide of the Ingush people was a crime of the Stalinist Soviet regime, an operation to forcibly deport Chechens and Ingush by the NKVD from the territory of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to Central Asia and Kazakhstan.

Ingushetia is one of the republics of the North Caucasus that is part of Russia, located next to the Chechen Republic. In 1944, from February 23 to March 9, almost all representatives of the Ingush and Chechens (according to historians, about 650,000 people) were forcibly deported to Central Asia. The reason for the deportation was allegedly their collaboration with Nazi Germany. Some Ingush and Chechens were killed on the spot by the NKVD during the so-called Operation Lentil. Chechen-Ingushetia, as an autonomous republic within the RSFSR, was liquidated. According to witnesses, before the deportation, security forces raped women and girls in public. About half of the deportees died on the way or in the first months of forced resettlement in the new territories due to harsh conditions, hunger and lack of medical care.

The date of February 23 is celebrated in Russia as "Defender of the Motherland Day," but the Ingush call it "the black day of the calendar." No federal politician has mentioned the tragedy of the two peoples in speeches dedicated to this date, nor have any events been held at the state level to commemorate the dead Ingush and Chechens.

Despite the long years of silence and oblivion during the Soviet era, the memory of the Ingush genocide continues to live on and be passed down through generations. Today, many organizations and activists are fighting for the recognition and condemnation of this tragedy and for justice for its victims.

On January 7, 2023, in Istanbul, Ahmad Ozdo (Ozdoev), a representative of the Ingush Independence Committee (IIC), together with Ingush activists, announced the adoption of the Declaration of Independence of Ingushetia. The declaration states that the committee's representatives intend to achieve international recognition of the genocide of the Ingush people in 1944 and condemnation of the ethnic cleansing that took place in 1992.

World recognition
There are still no objective statistics on the number of victims and survivors of this crime of the Soviet regime, nor is there a proper response from the world to it. Although the European Parliament recognized the deportations as an act of genocide on February 26, 2004, no legal steps have been taken to address this.

In Russia, the commemoration of the February 23rd genocide of the Ingush people was marked without events or recognition. After a small commemorative demonstration in front of the FSB headquarters in Moscow, it was dispersed and Lev Ponomaryov, head of the Movement for Human Rights, and Nikolai Khramov, leader of the Russian Radical Party, were briefly detained. A gathering of human rights defenders near the Solovetsky Stone on Troitskaya Square in St. Petersburg was spoiled by provocations by young people calling themselves skinheads. A ceremony at Saratov's central mosque, organized by Chechen and Ingush religious and cultural figures, with the participation of Russian community leaders and activists, went off without incident. Civil society organizations in Nazran issued a statement in support of Olivier Dupuy's hunger strike, but in general the public in Russia was completely unaware of the commemoration in Europe.No high-ranking official mentioned the deportation.

In 2012, an appeal was sent to the Georgian Parliament with a request to recognize the events of 1944 as genocide. The letter was sent to the Georgian embassy by human rights activist Ibrahim Lianov, who lives in Brussels.

Ukraine's recognition and reaction
In 2023, a group of members of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine introduced a bill to recognize the right of the Ingush to statehood. The bill recognizes the right of the Ingush people to establish an independent sovereign national state, condemns the mass deportation of 1944 and the division of the territory of compact residence of the Ingush. The authors supported the people's desire to restore their territorial integrity.

The draft law was proposed by deputies from several factions (Servant of the People, For the Future), including opposition factions (Batkivshchyna, European Solidarity, and Voice). Among the MPs are Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech and chairman of the Temporary Special Commission on the Development of State Policy on the Enslaved Peoples of the Russian Federation; Mykyta Poturayev, chairman of the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy; and Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, secretary of the Committee on Ukraine's Integration into the EU. Not only Ukrainian MPs, but also experts involved took an active part in drafting the bill. Among them were Ukrainian international lawyer Professor Volodymyr Vasylenko and Ansar Garhko, chairman of the Ingush Independence Committee (IIC). The work on the document took about six months. One of the main motivations of the developers was to restore historical justice.

In December 2023, a resolution recognizing the genocide of the Ingush people was registered. On February 23, 2024, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the draft Resolution "On Recognition of the Right of the Ingush People to Establish an Independent Sovereign National State, Condemnation of Russia's Crimes against the Ingush and Restoration of the Territorial Integrity of Ingushetia" (reg. No. 10344 of 14.12.2023), submitted by the People's Deputy of Ukraine Taruta S.O. and others.

The purpose of the draft Resolution is to condemn Russia's crimes against the Ingush, including mass deportation in 1944, dismemberment of the national territory of the Ingush people, destruction of the Ingush national identity, mass killings of the Ingush in 1992, as well as to recognize the right of the Ingush people to establish an independent sovereign national state, restore the territorial integrity of Ingushetia, express solidarity and support for the Ingush people, and draw the attention of the international community to the crimes committed by Russia. 248 deputies voted in favor of the resolution.

The parliament instructed the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk, to send the resolution to all members of the international community and urge them to make decisions in support of the Ingush people and condemn Russia's crimes against the Ingush.

On February 28, 2024, the Resolution of the International Conference dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the deportation of the Chechen and Ingush peoples was unanimously adopted in Kyiv.