Russia uses war to get rid of us

• Chiem Balduk

  Foreign publisher

Seydamet Mustafaev did not want to fight Ukraine, his country. The resident Crimean Tatar did not wait for mobilization and decided to flee. “My family was deported in 1944, and now we are forced to leave Crimea again,” he said recently. Ukrainian media.

As a result of the Russian mobilization, thousands of Crimean Tatars have already fled the 2014 Russian-occupied and illegally annexed peninsula, says Tamila Tasjeva in a conversation with NOS. She is forced to live and work in Kiev as “the Ukrainian president’s representative in Crimea”. Her office has strong signals that Crimean Tatars in particular are being called up for military service.

“We see that especially in the places where Crimean Tatars live or work, men are mobilized for warfare. These are Crimean Tatar villages, schools and bazaars,” says Tasjeva.

The mobilization in Crimea thus appears to have a discriminatory character. The organization SOS Crimea he calls it a “prelude to genocide”. It fits the picture that especially minorities are sacrificed in Russia’s war against Ukraine: in remote regions such as Buryatia and Dagestan, the relative death toll is dozens of times superior in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Escaping the mobilization is not easy, says Tasjeva. “It’s not possible through the Ukrainian mainland, they have to flee through Russia.” Since many people no longer have a Ukrainian passport, they can only enter countries with which Russia has visa agreements, such as Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

For Crimean Tatars it evokes memories of World War II, when Stalin had hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars deported to the east. The men now choose to leave, but they don’t feel voluntary at all: they don’t want to be used as cannon fodder against their former homeland. Activists speak of ‘trucking’.

According to Tasheva, the Crimean Tatars’ mobilization is part of a Russian campaign to confront the minority group. “Russia would prefer to have only Russians in Crimea, without Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars. They are therefore doing everything possible to change the demographics and rid Crimea of ​​’anti-Russian elements’.”

This was started right after the annexation in 2014, says the Crimean Tatar. “We were confronted because we are not loyal enough. Of the 150 politically motivated prosecutions, 120 involved Crimean Tatars, for example because they are said to be members of a ‘terrorist organisation’. Dozens of disappearances are also known.”

Citizens of Ukraine and Crimean Tatars in Crimea have been called up for military service since the Russian annexation. According to Tasjeva’s office, 36,000 Ukrainian citizens have already entered compulsory Russian military service since 2015.

“Those who had a chance to leave have already left in recent years,” says Crimean Tatar lawyer Damir Minadirov. In 2016, the FSB raided his home in Yalta and interrogated him for 12 hours using violence and intimidation over his alleged participation in an Islamic movement banned in Russia. He was sentenced to 19 years in prison, after which he fled to mainland Ukraine.

He still has many friends and family in Crimea and helps his fellow sufferers escape. Together with activists, lawyers and officials, she has opened a Telegram channel where those in need can go. At least 300 people have already knocked on her door. “Now I am mainly engaged in arranging documents for children who were born in Crimea after 2014, and therefore have a Russian passport.”

Not everyone can leave, says the lawyer. “For example, because they have no money or have to take care of relatives.” Many men try to go out on the streets as little as possible to avoid mobilization, says Minadirov.

Meanwhile, the chauffeur Tasheva prepares for the day when the Russian occupier will be driven out of Crimea. After the liberation of Kherson, there is hope that Crimea will soon “return” to Ukraine. “There is a lot of work to be done, from property rights to what we do with the approximately 800,000 Russians who have moved there.”