The Cultural Alliance of Hungarians in Sub-Carpathia (CAHS) welcomes Resolution No. 16005 adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on September 3, 2026. Under this document, Ukraine officially recognizes the mass repression committed against the civilian population of Sub-Carpathia by the Soviet military administration between 1944 and 1946 as a crime of the totalitarian Communist regime. The State also recognizes the mass repressions committed against civilians of Hungarian nationality – the so-called malenkiy robot – and German nationality in Sub-Carpathia during 1944–1946 as crimes of the totalitarian Communist regime.
Since its founding, one of the primary goals of the CAHS has been the investigation of the atrocities committed under Stalin’s terror and the rehabilitation of its victims. For thirty consecutive years, Hungarian members of the Ukrainian parliament have strived to achieve official recognition by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for the November 1944 mass deportation (malenkiy robot) of Hungarian and German men from Sub-Carpathia as genocide, political repression, or a crime against humanity.
During his tenure as MP between 1994 and 1998, Mihály Tóth was the first to initiate an amendment to Ukraine’s 1991 Law On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions. His objective was to ensure that civilians (Hungarian and German men aged 18–50) deported under Military Order No. 0036 under collective guilt were rehabilitated by the state not merely as forced laborers, but as victims of political persecution.
Miklós Kovács carried on the effort for legal rehabilitation and compensation during his term as MP from 1998 to 2002. He emphasized that Stalinist ethnic cleansing and forced labor camp deportations constitute genocide and crimes against humanity under international law, and are therefore exempt from statutes of limitations.
As an MP in 2013, nearing the 69th anniversary of the tragedy, István Gajdos submitted a draft resolution urging the Ukrainian parliament to declare the 1944 deportation of Sub-Carpathian Hungarians and Germans an ethnically motivated genocide and political repression by the Stalinist regime, and to establish an official national day of remembrance.
During his term as MP from 2014 to 2019, László Brenzovics submitted draft resolutions on the 70th and 75th anniversaries of the deportations, alongside comprehensive proposed amendments to the Rehabilitation Law. These draft resolutions called for state-level recognition and commemoration of the tragedy, asking the Ukrainian state to assume moral and legal responsibility for the crimes of the Stalinist dictatorship and to declare the deportations a genocide against the Sub-Carpathian Hungarian population.
Progress was made at the local level: in 2004, at the initiative of the CAHS, the Zakarpattia Regional Council issued a declaration condemning the ethnically motivated deportations carried out by the Stalinist dictatorship, declared the malenkiy robot political repression at a regional level, and appealed to the Ukrainian parliament for state-level recognition and full rehabilitation. Subsequently, in October 2014, the Hungarian representative group of the regional council (initiated and led by László Brenzovics, who was also Vice Chairman of the Zakarpattia Regional Council at the time) adopted an official resolution proposing that the third Sunday of November be declared a regional day of remembrance for the Hungarian and German victims of deportation. The regional assembly sent an official submission and draft resolution to the Verkhovna Rada and the President of Ukraine in Kyiv, requesting state recognition of the 1944–1946 deportations as genocide and political repression against the Hungarian and German populations of Sub-Carpathia.
Over the past thirty years, scientific research has successfully mapped, uncovered, and documented the circumstances, victims, and consequences of the malenkiy robot deportations. The KMKSZ has erected memorials in every Hungarian-inhabited settlement to honor the victims. Prior to the war, every five years it organized commemorative marches on foot from Mukachevo to Svaliava, terminating at the memorial site established on the grounds of the former concentration camp. The creation of this site was initiated by the KMKSZ in 1989 and dedicated in 1994; the memorial park has been expanded several times since. The maintenance and care of this sacred memorial site are managed by the Svaliava Memorial Park Committee.
Despite previous initiatives that resulted in several local rehabilitation decisions, the Verkhovna Rada had previously rejected or refused to schedule for discussion the comprehensive, legislative recognition of the malenkiy robot as genocide. In light of this, today’s decision represents a historic breakthrough and a long-overdue moral vindication for the victims and their families.
Uzhhorod, September 3, 2026.
