Eyvaz Umerov, head of the regional national cultural autonomy of the Crimean Tatars. Archive photoSIMFEROPOL, Apr 9 > The head of the regional national-cultural autonomy of the Crimean Tatars, Eyvaz Umerov, said that the southern territories never belonged to Ukraine, they historically belonged to the Crimea and were associated exclusively with Russia. «Since the time of the Crimean Khanate, the land between the Danube and the Dnieper, as well as the after the Crimea became part of the Russian Empire, within the borders of the Taurida province, they always belonged to the peninsula and were connected exclusively with Russia.The territories of modern Odessa, Kherson and up to Zaporozhye, and Mariupol were never part of Ukraine in history.Only the Soviet government tore away these lands during the formation of the Ukrainian state,» Umerov told RIA Novosti. According to him, the majority of the Russian-cultural population lives in the south of Ukraine. In addition, more than 75 thousand Crimean Tatars and those related to them: Urums and Romans live in the current Kherson and Azov parts of the Zaporozhye region. «Crimean Tatars consider it right, fair and historically justified to return these territories to the Russian Crimea: either within the borders of the Crimean Khanate , or within the borders of the Taurida province,» Umerov said.
