The SSU and the State Archive Service of Ukraine have opened online access to archival documents of Soviet repressive authorities in Crimea.

‘The published material has significant meaning in the context of the hybrid war with Russia and because Crimean archives are temporarily closed. It is extremely important to open historical truth to the public, in particular, about large-scale repressions initiated by Moscow and carried out by communist totalitarian regime in the Crimea,’ representative of the SSU Branch State Archive remarked during the presentation.

The published archival documents can be found on the official web portal of the State Archive Service of Ukraine in the special section Crimea Documents.

The documents that can now be viewed online include:

• acts of execution of death sentences of VNK-ODPU (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission - Joint State Political Directorate, Soviet Union) in 1920–1922 and 1928–1934 and courts in the Crimea in 1920–1941;
• minutes of meetings of the Crimean boards of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission and the Presidium of the State Political Directorate in Simferopol, Sevastopol and Feodosia in 1921-1922;
• minutes of some meetings of NKVD troikas (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs commissions of three officials who issued sentences) of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1937.

These documents contain information on the repressed people including their photos.

Overall, experts have identified 106 archival cases pertaining to repressive activities of Soviet state security bodies in the Crimea. Electronic copies of 30 of these cases have been made public.

Publication of these documents online is the outcome of intense cooperation between the SSU Archive and the State Archive Service of Ukraine.

Over the next year, the SSU Archive is planning to expand the open collection of documents on this topic to include minutes of meetings of the NKVD troikas and acts of execution of death sentences upon decisions of this extrajudicial body in the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1937-1938.