Ukraine recognizes Soviet crimes against Hungarians in Zakarpattia
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The Verkhovna Rada became the first parliament in the world to condemn the USSR's repressions in Transcarpathia (Photo: REUTERS/Marko Djurica)
Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada has adopted a statement recognizing and condemning crimes committed by the Soviet military administration against Hungarians in Zakarpattia in 1944-1946.
The resolution was supported by 261 lawmakers on Sept. 3.
The document states that after Hungarian and German forces withdrew in the fall of 1944, Zakarpattia came under the control of the Soviet military administration.
Soviet NKVD and SMERSH security agencies then began mass detentions of civilian men ages 18 to 50 under the pretext of “mobilizing” them for so-called labor camps.
Thousands of local residents were deported to the Gulag without court rulings, the statement says.
Parliament recognized the Soviet military administration’s mass repression of Zakarpattia’s civilian population, particularly ethnic Hungarians, as well as the practice known as “malenkiy robot” — derived from the distorted Russian phrase malenkaya rabota, or “a little work,” which Soviet troops used to describe the purported reason for deportations — as crimes of the communist totalitarian regime.
The Verkhovna Rada also condemned forced deportations, extrajudicial executions and persecution on ethnic, religious and social grounds carried out by the NKVD and SMERSH.
The statement calls for commemorating victims of Soviet repression, opening archival materials, supporting academic research and incorporating these events into educational programs.
Parliament also stressed that Russia, which continues its armed aggression against Ukraine, is committing crimes in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories that resemble practices of the communist totalitarian regime, including large-scale repression of civilians.
The Verkhovna Rada called on the international community, academic institutions and archives in democratic countries to help restore the historical record concerning crimes of Soviet totalitarianism in Ukraine.
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