The Permanent Representative Tamila Tasheva met with a delegation of Austrian parliamentarians during their visit to a number of cities in southern and eastern Ukraine.

The delegation included members of the Austrian National Council: Helmut Brandstetter, Chairman of the National Council’s Parliamentary Group for Interparliamentary Relations with Ukraine and member of the Defense Committee, Harald Troch, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Human Rights, Wolfgang Gerstl, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Constitution, and Eva Ernst-Dzidzic, political scientist and Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Human Rights.

The delegation also included Ambassador of Austria to Ukraine Arad Benkö and other diplomats and staff of the Embassy. The Head of the Crimean Platform Support Service Maria Tomak and the Chief Consultant of the Service Ivan Dagayev participated in the meeting.

During the working lunch in Odesa the participants of the meeting discussed the current situation in the temporarily occupied Crimea and how it has changed since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, as well as the upcoming events within the framework of the Crimean Platform that will take place this year. A significant part of the conversation was devoted to the most common Russian messages about Crimea, which are still widespread in the information space of Western partner countries, including Austria. Tamila Tasheva also told the delegates about the history of the Ukrainian peninsula and the indigenous peoples of Ukraine, who historically formed in Crimea.

Finally, Tamila Tasheva called on the delegates to create an inter-factional association “Crimean Platform” in their parliament or a relevant subgroup within the Ukraine-Austria parliamentary “friendship group”.

Recently, the Austrian Parliament condemned the horrific crime committed by the Soviet regime against Ukrainians – the Holodomor of 1932-33 – and the Permanent Representative appealed to the members of the Austrian National Council to initiate and support a resolution recognizing the Holodomor as genocide of the Ukrainian people.