The Permanent Representative Tamila Tasheva was interviewed live on the Nigerian TV channel Channels Television. 

Channels Television is a Nigerian independent 24-hour news and information television channel based in Lagos, Nigeria. The channel started broadcasting in 1995. The channel focuses on producing news and current affairs programmes on Nigeria’s domestic issues. For more than a year now, the channel has been broadcasting the Russian invasion programme, which was the subject of the interview with Ms Tasheva. The programme was hosted by journalist Olumide Makoli. 

Olumide Makoli thanked Ms Tasheva in Ukrainian for joining the programme and expressed his condolences for the victims of the nightly shelling by the terrorist state, including a 22-day-old baby.

The Permanent Representative spoke about how the situation in the occupied Crimea has changed since the start of the full-scale invasion. 

“Since 24 February, the situation in the occupied Crimea has deteriorated significantly. The Russian Federation is constantly introducing new repressive laws aimed at suppressing dissent, primarily the so-called “discrediting the Russian army” and “spreading fake news” laws. The occupation administrations persecute our people for every action that can be seen as support for mainland Ukraine, including wearing blue and yellow nails, traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirts and official Ukrainian state symbols, as well as Ukrainian traditional songs. According to the latest information alone, the number of political prisoners is 180, 117 of whom are Crimean Tatars,” said Ms Tasheva.

Answering the host’s question about the truthfulness of the information about the “pro-Russian population” in Crimea, the Permanent Representative provided information about the demographic situation on the occupied peninsula, as well as about the crime of colonization that Russia has been committing against Crimea for several centuries and the repression of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people. 

A separate topic of the programme was the peace formula of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, where one of the points is the restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea. 

“There can be no compromises here, including on the Crimean peninsula,” emphasized Tamila Tasheva.