On 23 February, 1944, the Chechen and Ingush peoples were deported to Siberia and the northern regions of Kazakhstan by order of Joseph Stalin. The operation, conducted on the spurious grounds that the Chechen and Ingush people had collaborated with the Nazis, was carried out by the NKVD, then headed by Lavrenty Beria. An estimated 500,000 people were deported and the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was abolished. Tens of thousands of Chechens and Ingush died or were killed during deportation and in the first years in exile. Survivors were only allowed to return home in 1957. On 26 February 2004 the European Parliament voted to recognize the deportation as an act of genocide.

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Sources:
Operation Lentil (Caucasus), Wikipedia
Mairbek Vatchagaev, 'Remembering the 1944 Deportation: Chechnya's Holocaust,' Jamestown Foundation, North Caucasus Analysis Volume: 8 Issue: 8
Sapiet Dakhshukaeva, 'Remembering Stalin's deportations,' BBC, 23 February 2004
Aurélie Campana, 'The Massive Deportation of the Chechen People: How and why Chechens were Deported,' Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, 12 February 2015'Chechnya: European Parliament recognises the genocide of the Chechen People in 1944,' UNREPRESENTED NATIONS AND PEOPLES ORGANIZATION, 27 February 2004