Russia repeats genocide on Crimean Tatars

The 80 years since the genocidal deportation of the Crimean Tatar people are not just a tragedy for the Crimean Tatars, but a systemic diagnosis and a historical warning of what Russian imperialism is.

MEP Anna Fotyga, former foreign minister of Poland. 

For many nations in Europe and Asia, no other country has brought as much sorrow and suffering as Russia. This state has distorted and maimed the countless individuals and nations. Russia’s continued existence depends on its ability to expand. From the Vistula, the Baltic Sea, and the Danube in the west, to the Caucasus, the Balkans, and Central Asia in the south, to the Far East in the east, the peoples inhabiting these territories have been in a state of constant fear for the last 400 years due to the ongoing threat of Moscow’s aggression, occupation, colonization, and  even complete ethnic genocide.

The Crimean Tatars are but one of numerous peoples who have suffered from Moscow’s expansionist policies over the course of three consecutive centuries. Moscow first deprived the Crimean Tatars of their state territories, and then of their statehood on the Crimean Peninsula and the adjacent regions. These territories are currently witnessing fierce battles for Ukrainian independence.. In the late 18th century, Crimean Tatars, along with Poles and Ukrainians, fell into the hands of Russian imperialism, and the first thing Moscow did was strike at the historical memory of these peoples. The blow to the Crimean Tatars was so profound that by the end of the 19th century, they were on the brink of total extinction.

Even the microscopic presence of Crimean Tatars on the Crimean Peninsula was viewed as an existential, ideological, and historical threat for the Kremlin. Putin’s words were not accidental when he said that Crimea is a sacred place for all of Russia. However,  it is based on historical lies and omits the fact that less than 6 per cent of Crimea’s written history belongs to the Russian chapter.  This short period of 168 years was fulfilled with genocidal policies of the Russian rulers,  because  in this strategic location there was no place for the indigenous people under tsarist, Soviet rule and likewise for Putin’s and any other chauvinistic regime in Russia. As a result, on May 19, 1944, 80 years ago, Moscow organised a mass deportation of the Crimean Tatar people and several other ethnic groups residing on the peninsula. The entire Crimean Tatar people were squeezed into hundreds of enormous kilometer-long trains and moved eastward to Central Asia over 21 days. It was a deliberate decision to annihilate the people of Crimea and the peoples of the North Caucasus, who were also mass-deported that year. During their exile, the Crimean Tatars lost about half of their population. 

Immediately after the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, the process of complete historical, cultural, and archaeological annihilation of all Crimean Tatars began. 80 per cent of the Crimean Tatar localities were renamed.  It was a deliberate and targeted forgetting of the history of Crimea, which was intertwined with the history of its indigenous people. It was exactly what the term genocide defines. We need to say it loudly: Moscow committed genocide on the Crimean Tatars in 1944.  This process continued until the end of the USSR, and even after the fall of the empire and the return of the indigenous people to their homeland. Local authorities and pro-Russian forces in Kyiv actively hindered the restoration of the presence of Crimean Tatars in Crimea. The Crimean Tatars and their representative bodies, the Mejlis and the Qurultay, made their historical choice to support a pro-European and pro-Ukrainian future for Ukrainian statehood in the late 1980s and have essentially never deviated from this course. They believed and believed that only in this way could they ensure the revival of their people on their ancestral land.

In the 2000s, a new historical period of flourishing seemed to begin for the Crimean Tatars. Culture, media, art, and much more were developing. It appeared that the Crimean Tatars were given a second chance for historical and, most importantly, political revival. However, Russian imperialism never sleeps and was preparing an act of aggression against Ukraine and the Crimean Tatars. The annexation and occupation of Crimea again placed the Crimean Tatars on the brink of survival. They forced the political leadership and active and talented youth to leave the peninsula because Moscow and the occupying authorities initiated mass persecution of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars for their refusal to accept the new /old occupying power. Since 2014, Crimea is the epicenter of human rights violations in occupied Ukraine, the Crimean Tatars have again found themselves on the brink of an existential challenge, as they did in the late 18th century when they were under the occupation of the Russian Empire. Let me just focus on one case. Server Mustafayev was born in 1986 in Uzbekistan. The family later returned to Crimea, specifically to the city of Bakhchisarai. Server finished school in Bakhchisarai and then enrolled in the Bakhchisarai Construction College at the National Agrarian University. He studied at Kyiv National University, specializing in heat and gas supply and ventilation. Afterward, he worked as a manager in communication shops. In 2014 he started to manage a chain of bakeries. He was also active in the community in Bakhchisarai, organizing children’s parties and social events and helping low-income families. He became the coordinator of the public association “Crimean Solidarity”.In May 2018, the occupation authorities searched Mustafayev’s house and arrested the activist. Subsequently, the occupation authorities illegally sentenced him to 14 years in prison for participating in the “activities of a terrorist organization” and “preparing for the violent seizure of power.” The occupiers convicted Server Mustafayev for defending victims of political persecution and reporting on human rights violations in the occupied Crimea. Despite the harsh conditions of his imprisonment, Server remains an activist and is involved in human rights activitie.: Server helped  his cellmate reunite with  his child, who was taken from him when he was taken to prison. Due to a long stay in the pre-trial detention center, Mustafayev developed heart problems. A similar fate is shared by more than  200 political prisoners from occupied, majority of  of whom are Crimean Tatars.

Since February 2022, with the beginning of full-scale aggression against Ukraine, the Crimean Tatars have supported the Ukrainian people in their struggle against the Russian aggressor. The mass emigration of Crimean Tatars from Crimea in the autumn of 2022 to many EU countries and Turkey should be seen as a systemic refusal to serve in the occupying forces and shoot civilians. Some Crimean Tatars remain living in Crimea, where they have been deprived of cultural, political, and historical rights, while others are scattered like beads around the world. The Kremlin effectively favours the soft migration of Crimean Tatars beyond the borders of the Russian Federation and Crimea. The situation in other occupied territories in the Donbas and Zaporizhia region demonstrates that the underlying scheme is chauvinism, characterised by genocide and the destruction of everything non-Russian and dissenting.

The 80 years since the genocidal deportation of the Crimean Tatar people are not merely a tragedy for the Crimean Tatars; they constitute a systemic diagnosis and a historical warning of the nature of Russian imperialism. It is imperative that this pattern of aggression-genocide-colonization-annexation be halted. Never again is now.  Our obligations under the genocide convention require our strong support to Crimean Tatars. It can be argued that the only way to prevent Russia from repeating the crime of genocide is for Crimea to be returned to Ukraine.

The liberation of Crimea must be the principal objective of our goals for Ukraine’s victory and we must recognise that this is already underway.  Russia’s aggression against Ukraine started with Crimea and cannot be won until Crimea’s liberation. Once Crimea is liberated, the subsequent domino effect will result in the downfall of Putin and his allies.