Occupation Victims Without Borders (OVWB) is an association of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian victims of occupation and mass deportation whose mission is to stand for the fair treatment of history and the independence of our countries.

The mass deportations, massacres of people and other crimes against humanity carried out by the Soviet Union in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania between 1940 and 1941 and from 1944 to 1991 are acts that have no justification and have caused the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people. It is unfortunate that the successor to the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, has so far not apologised for these crimes and even continues to justify and recommit them.

Justifying the crimes of the Soviet Union jeopardises not only a factual approach to history, but also the security of today's Europe and the world. The message that the Stalinist regime was legitimate is also a call for a repeat of historical crimes.

We – the victims of the occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – promise to stand for the fair treatment of history and the independence of our countries. Our task is to remind both our European and American friends that the Russian Federation, which justifies Stalin's crimes, cannot be a reliable partner for democratic Western countries. Also in 1939/1940, the Soviet Union, then ally of Nazi Germany, occupied the Baltic states under the guise of security.

We promise to stand up for the truth in our national educational institutions and to contribute to the circulation of our stories across Europe by working with national ministries of education and helping to develop history teaching programmes. We are committed to commemorating the victims of mass deportations and other innocent victims. We find that without remembering, it is not possible to learn from the mistakes of the past. Today, we are seeing horrors in Ukraine that we hoped never to see again in our lives. We must ensure that the promise of 'never again' has real substance.