Crimean Muslims were subjected to mass deportation in 1944 when Joseph Stalin accused them of collaborating with Nazi Germany. More than 200,000 Crimean Tatars were deported to Central Asia, primarily the Uzbek SSR. It is estimated that more than 100,000 deportees died of starvation or disease due to the deportation. The property and territory abandoned by Crimean Tatars was appropriated by the mostly ethnic Russians who were resettled by the Soviet authorities, leading to large demographic changes in Crimea. Although a 1967 Soviet decree removed the wartime collaboration charges against Crimean Tatars, the Soviet government did nothing to facilitate their resettlement in Crimea, and the repatriation of Crimean Tatars to their homeland only began in 1989.