The cost of annexation is life

Special project to mark the 5th anniversary of the occupation of Crimea

The film is about how the occupation has changed and sometimes broken the lives of people living on the peninsula. Hromadske journalist Natalia Humeniuk arrived in Crimea on the day of the so-called ‘referendum’ on 16 March 2014, where she talked to people in Bakhchisarai, Simferopol, Yalta and Sevastopol. Since then, the journalist has returned to the peninsula at least once a year: she talked about the first political prisoners, the beginning of repressions against Crimean Tatars, the economic conditions and everyday life of the residents of the occupied Crimea, and what it was like to be a Ukrainian in the occupied Crimea or even an activist of the ‘Crimea is ours’ movement who began to criticise the occupation administration. After 5 years, Hromadske journalists returned to the people whose stories were told in the first months of the annexation.