Half a million Russian citizens have been resettled to Russia-occupied Crimea, but Russia is deliberately understating these statistics, Deputy Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea Tamila Tasheva has said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.

"According to estimates of human rights organizations, there are about 500,000 people who came to the peninsula from Russia. This is a huge percentage of the total population of Crimea. Russia is talking about smaller figures. They show about 280,000 people," Tasheva said.

According to her, Russia is understating the numbers of citizens being displaced to Crimea because it understands that under international law, the deliberate movement of the population for the purpose of changing the ethnic composition of a territory is a crime.

She noted that 25,000 Crimean Tatars had left Crimea since the occupation of the peninsula.

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