‘A way to get rid of us’: Crimean Tatars decry Russia’s mobilisation | Crimea
RAviation activists in Crimea say Russia’s mobilization campaign in the occupied peninsula is disproportionately targeting Crimean Tatars, an ethnic group who have largely opposed Russian rule since the territory’s annexation in 2014.
“Everywhere, in every city, I hear that the majority of those mobilized are Crimean Tatars, and we know that they are particularly targeting settlements with a predominantly Crimean Tatar population,” an activist from the group, who still lives on the peninsula, said in one phone interview .
“This will be a disaster for us that will take years to heal.”
Vladimir Putin on Wednesday announced a “partial mobilization” to support Russia’s flagging invasion of Ukraine with new troops. Across the country, families of men called up to fight have bid farewell. There are reports of disproportionate mobilizations in poor regions populated by ethnic minorities, such as Buryatia and the North Caucasus republics.
The predominantly Muslim Crimean Tatars make up about 13% of the Crimean population. There is no official breakdown of who was mobilized, but ample anecdotal evidence suggests that the Crimean Tatars were disproportionately attacked. Crimea SOS, a Ukrainian human rights organization, estimates that 90% of mobilization decisions went to Crimean Tatars.
“This is a deliberate attempt to destroy the Crimean Tatar nation,” President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during his nightly video address on Saturday.
Tamila Tasheva, Zelenskyy’s top representative for Crimea, also said she believes Russia is deliberately targeting the group. “The Crimean Tatars are the least loyal segment of the population to Russia, and it was clear that they were greatly encouraged by Ukraine’s recent military successes. Now they will be punished,” she said.
Tasheva, a Crimean Tatar woman, said she received dozens of reports from members of her ethnic group from police officers who arrived in their towns or villages and issued subpoenas.
“People are panicking, they don’t know what to do,” she said. She advises those mobilized to try and surrender to Ukrainian forces at the first possible opportunity. “But of course we’re afraid that the Russians will just shoot them in the back.”
When asked if arming thousands of opponents was a strategy that could backfire for Moscow, she said, “Unfortunately, the Russians are not stupid enough to gather all the Crimean Tatars into one regiment.”
Others also reported a sense of helplessness and panic in the community as people tried to flee Crimea.
With the nearest international airport hundreds of kilometers away from Crimea, persistent rumors that Russia may close the bridge across the Kerch Strait that connects the peninsula with Russia, and huge queues at Russia’s remaining open land borders with other countries , the escape is not easy.
“Right now it’s the only topic of discussion. How to escape, how to hide, how to get out of Russia. Yesterday I was at a birthday party and nobody was talking about anything else. There is no smile, no happiness. Everyone is depressed, the women are crying,” said the activist.
Tatars have called Crimea home for centuries, but became a minority after Russia took over the region under Catherine the Great in the 18th century. Joseph Stalin had the entire population deported to Central Asia during World War II, falsely slandering the group as Nazi collaborators. Most were not allowed to return to the peninsula until the 1980s.
This long experience of persecution led many Crimean Tatars to be extremely hostile to the Russian annexation in 2014. Russian authorities then tried to co-opt Crimean Tatar leaders, but most refused to cooperate. A campaign of harassment and persecution against active community leaders began, and Russia banned it mejlis, the representative body of the Crimean Tatars. Many of its members have been banned from entering the peninsula and now live in Kyiv or elsewhere.
Dozens of Crimean Tatars are believed to be political prisoners, and arrests and pressure have mounted since the war began in February as Russian authorities look for sabotage and conspiracies among a population they deem disloyal.
Crimean police arrested six wedding guests and the venue owner earlier this month after the DJ played a pro-Ukrainian song at a wedding, and Russian authorities said anyone showing pro-Ukrainian sentiments must be arrested .
Tasheva said, “First they tried to buy us, then they tried to suppress us, and now they see the mobilization as an attempt to just get rid of us.”