UK Ambassador opens Crimean Room, soon to be adorned with MAGURA V5 from Ukrainian intelligence officers
UK Ambassador to Ukraine Martin Harris has opened a new room dedicated to Crimea and the Crimean people at his official residence in Kyiv. The room will be adorned with a symbolic model of a MAGURA V5 maritime attack drone, a gift from Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU).
The UK Embassy said the room demonstrates the UK’s historical ties with the peninsula, in particular during the Crimean War, and emphasises the United Kingdom's support for Ukraine's territorial integrity.
The embassy has specially commissioned Crimean Tatar artefacts – metal, ceramics and fabrics by renowned artisans – to showcase the rich and ancient culture of the Crimean Tatars on the peninsula.
The room will also be graced with a symbolic model of a MAGURA V5 maritime attack drone presented by Defence Intelligence of Ukraine. This particular type of drone has destroyed the largest number of Russian ships in the Black Sea since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The room also contains authentic medals from the Crimean War, lent to the UK Embassy by the Light Dragoons Regimental Museum.
The French and Italian embassies in Kyiv have also presented Harris with engravings depicting Sardinian and French troops who fought alongside the British in the Crimean War.
"The new Crimean Room at the UK Ambassador's residence in Kyiv emphasises the United Kingdom's firm support for Ukraine's territorial integrity and its unequivocal position that Crimea is Ukraine," Harris concluded.
The MAGURA V5 is a versatile Ukrainian surface unmanned vehicle capable of performing a wide range of tasks, including surveillance, reconnaissance, patrolling, search and rescue, mine countermeasures, maritime security, and combat missions.
On the night of 8-9 August, Ukrainian reconnaissance men used a MAGURA V5 surface attack drone to destroy a Russian Tunets (Tuna) speedboat near Chornomorske in temporarily occupied Crimea.
In July, the Polish Sejm (the lower chamber of the Polish parliament) adopted a resolution to commemorate the victims of the 1944 genocide of Crimean Tatars when they were deported from Crimea by the Soviet authorities.
In 2022, Canada's House of Commons unanimously recognised the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars as an act of genocide. The deportation of Crimean Tatars had previously been recognised as a genocide in Ukraine, Latvia and Lithuania.