Why Russia Did and Does Persecute Crimean Tatars: Past Meets Present
On May 18 — the anniversary of the 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars — we tell the story of how this community endured Soviet-era repression and how they continue to fight for their rights today under Russian occupation. Why are the Crimean Tatars once again facing persecution since 2014?
Crimean Tatar women in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. © Facebook "Chronicles of a Beautiful Era"
Who are the Crimean Tatars?
On May 18 — the anniversary of the 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars — we tell the story of how this community endured Soviet-era repression and how they continue to fight for their rights today under Russian occupation. Why are the Crimean Tatars once again facing persecution since 2014?
The Crimean Tatars are an Eastern European Turkic people who historically formed on the Crimean Peninsula and in the Northern Black Sea region. They are the Indigenous people of Crimea and one of the Indigenous peoples of Ukraine.
The Crimean Tatars have their own language (Crimean Tatar), traditions, and rich culture. Although the majority of Ukraine’s population is Christian, they practice Islam. However, despite all the differences between our peoples, the Crimean Tatars have become an integral part of Ukraine, and their culture has become part of the cultural landscape of the Black Sea region.
The Struggle for Freedom: Exile from Crimea, Return, and Russian Occupation
Like Ukrainians, the Crimean Tatars endured some of the most brutal repressions in history during the 20th century. On May 18, 1944, the USSR began deporting over 191,000 people to Central Asia and some northeastern regions of Russia. This tragedy, which the Tatars themselves call sürgün (exile), led to the deaths of thousands, the destruction of their material and cultural heritage, and prolonged hardship in conditions of repression. According to various estimates, between one-third and nearly half of the Crimean Tatar population of Crimea perished as a result of these repressive measures.
Crimean Tatars in exile in Krasnovishersk, Molotov Oblast, 1950. © Ukrainian Institute of National Memory.
In Soviet propaganda, this genocide was justified by accusing the entire Crimean Tatar people of collaborating with the Nazis during World War II — but the regime had no evidence to support these claims.
It was only toward the end of the Soviet regime that the Crimean Tatars were able to return to their homeland, with most returning during Ukraine’s independence.
In 1991, in Simferopol, the Crimean Tatars established their representative body — the Mejlis (Qırımtatar Milliy Meclisi), which became a platform for restoring justice after decades of repression, deportation, and discrimination. Its main tasks have always been the protection of the rights of the Crimean Tatar people, the preservation of cultural heritage, and ensuring the return to their historical homeland.
Mejlis. June 30, 1991. © Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People.
By 2014, the Mejlis had a widespread network of local branches: about 300 local Mejlis bodies, including 15 district and 7 city branches. They worked on resettling the deported, restoring historical justice, developing culture and education, and protecting the rights of the Crimean Tatar community at the local level.
However, after Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014, the situation changed drastically. Moscow’s policy has been aimed at suppressing any resistance and stripping people of the ability to exercise their cultural, social, and political rights. On April 13, 2016, a decision was issued to suspend the activities of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people “in order to prevent violations of federal law.”
The Mejlis was declared an “extremist organization,” its activities were banned on the peninsula, and activists were subjected to persecution, arrests, and repression. The leaders and members of the Mejlis were forced to leave for mainland Ukraine, where the organization continues its work. Today, the Mejlis not only defends the rights of Crimean Tatars but also actively draws international attention to the crimes of the occupation authorities, advocates for the de-occupation of Crimea, and supports displaced persons and the families of political prisoners.
The Mejlis has become an important voice for the Crimean Tatars on the international stage — it works with the UN, the European Union, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and other international bodies.
The 2014 Exile and the Persecution of the Innocent: The Stories of Mustafa Dzhemilev and Leniie Umerova
The main tools used in the crackdown against the Crimean Tatars have been arrests, abductions, physical violence, and property confiscations. Many activists and public figures have become victims of fabricated charges of terrorism and extremism.
Repression is not just a means of intimidation but a systemic policy of control and suppression of anything that could become the basis for resistance.
The Russian occupation authorities persecute Crimean Tatars regardless of age, gender, or status. Both elderly activists and young people — students, journalists, entrepreneurs, artists — fall under repression. Any expression of identity, connection to Ukraine, or even simply a refusal to submit to the rules of the occupation does not go unnoticed by Russian security forces.
Mustafa Jemilev – the first head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people. © Facebook Mustafa Jemilev.
One of the key leaders of the Crimean Tatar national movement, dissident Mustafa Dzhemilev (81), has fully experienced the brutality of both the Soviet and Russian regimes. As a child, he was deported with his family to Uzbekistan in 1944. From a young age, he was persecuted by the Soviet authorities for his political views — expelled from university and convicted seven times on fabricated charges. After returning to Ukraine, Dzhemilev led the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People for over 20 years (1991–2013). He has openly opposed Russian military actions in Crimea and stated that Russia’s FSB is trying to sow division among the Crimean Tatars.
Under the Russian occupation, on April 22, 2014, while crossing the administrative border between Crimea and Ukraine, Dzhemilev was handed a document banning him from entering Russia and Crimea for five years. On May 3, 2014, he attempted to return to Crimea, but was not allowed in and was forced to go back to Kyiv. In 2021, it became known that the entry ban had been extended until 2034.
Leniie Umerova. © Instagram @bojecka (Leniie Umerova).
To become a victim of Russian persecution, Crimean Tatars do not need to be seasoned activists or politicians. One of the most well-known civilian victims of Russian repression in Crimea is Leniie Umerova (26). Born on the peninsula, she moved to mainland Ukraine after the 2014 annexation, refusing to accept Russian citizenship. Her father remained in Crimea, fell seriously ill, and underwent a major surgery, prompting Leniie to travel to occupied Crimea in December 2022 to visit him. With direct routes blocked, she chose to go through Georgia, where Russian security forces detained her at the border — officially for “violating the rules of the border zone.” She was held for several months in a Temporary Detention Center for Foreign Nationals near Vladikavkaz, and after receiving a formal fine of 2,000 rubles, was again seized by unknown men as she exited the center. They put a bag over her head and took her to an unknown location, where she was detained by the police — this time for “disobedience.”
Despite international attention, Umerova’s case proceeded rapidly and non-transparently. The FSB accused her of espionage for Ukraine, and the Lefortovo Court in Moscow ordered her arrest. The case was classified, while Russian state media spread the narrative that Leniie had allegedly passed information about Russian troop locations and missions to Ukrainian intelligence.
Russia continued to hold Leniie in Russian prisons, including Lefortovo — one of the country’s most closed facilities. But after numerous diplomatic efforts and negotiations, in September 2024, Leniie was released from Russian captivity in a prisoner exchange along with other military and civilian detainees.
Her story is just one of many that demonstrate the resilience of the Crimean Tatar people under repression and in their struggle for freedom. Political prisoners remain in Russian prisons, including Crimean Tatars such as the brothers Asan and Aziz Akhmetov, Amet Suleymanov, Teymur and Uzeir Abdullayev, Muslim Aliyev, Server Mustafayev, and many others.
Ukrainian activists hold portraits of Crimean tatars jailed by Russia © EPA
At the same time, while individuals fight for the right to life and dignity, another no less dangerous war is being waged on a broader level — the war against memory. The Russian occupation authorities in Crimea are not only persecuting Crimean Tatars but are also effectively destroying their cultural heritage and rewriting the peninsula’s history.
How is Russia Erasing Crimea’s Cultural Memory?
The destruction of Crimean Tatar heritage has been one of the key tools of Soviet and now Russian colonial policy in Crimea. After the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944, the Soviet authorities did not simply expel the people — they embarked on a systematic effort to erase them from collective memory. Monuments and cemeteries were destroyed, the historical names of villages and towns were changed, mosques were turned into warehouses, shops, and cinemas, and the homes of the displaced Tatars were settled by Russians and Ukrainians. This was not just the destruction of material culture — it was an attack on the very identity of the people.
After returning to Crimea in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Crimean Tatars began to restore what was lost: reclaiming religious and cultural sites, erecting monuments to the victims of deportation, gathering archives, and preserving their language. But since 2014, following Russia’s occupation of the peninsula, the assault on Crimean Tatar heritage has resumed. Russian authorities systematically restrict the use of the Crimean Tatar language, shut down independent media and cultural centers, and persecute religious communities.
This systematic erasure of the Crimean Tatar presence in Crimea pursues a clear goal — to rewrite the history of the peninsula, presenting it as “eternally Russian.” For Russia, the very idea of Crimea as a multicultural space with deep Muslim-Tatar roots that existed long before the arrival of the Russian Empire is intolerable. This is why the destruction of heritage and the persecution of the Crimean Tatars are two sides of the same policy: a policy of displacement and replacement.
In September 2019, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay presented a report documenting the deterioration of the situation in Crimea across nearly all areas within the organization’s mandate. In 2021, an official UNESCO report at the 212th session of the Executive Board monitoring the situation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea mentioned works being carried out at the Khan’s Palace in Bakhchysarai, which, according to the report, “pose a real threat of destroying the historical and cultural value of the monument.”
The Khan’s Palace in Bakhchysarai
The Khan’s Palace in Bakhchysarai was the main residence of the Crimean Khans of the Giray dynasty, the administrative and political center of the Crimean Khanate since the first third of the 16th century. It is the only surviving palace of the five Khan residences, having withstood wars and even the devastating 9-magnitude earthquake of 1927. For Crimean Tatars, it is a center of collective memory, culture, and history, a place embodying their centuries-long struggle for statehood, political subjectivity, and the right to their land.
The Khan’s Palace is the only example in the world of Crimean Tatar palace architecture, a rare example of an intact architectural complex of Islamic Mediterranean-Black Sea culture that has survived to this day.
Even during Soviet times, restorations gradually destroyed the authentic appearance of the palace, although in the 1960s, under Soviet Ukraine, the first scientific restoration was carried out — murals were cleaned, ceilings were restored, and later the interiors of the Great Khan Mosque were rehabilitated.
However, with the start of the Russian occupation, a new wave of destruction began. Since 2017, the Russians have been carrying out “restoration” work, many aspects of which are not only unnecessary but also dangerous, on about 20 objects of the complex. For example, during the “restoration” of the Dürbe of Dilyara Bikeç (a mausoleum near the Southern Gate of the palace), large cracks appeared on the walls of the Khan’s Palace. A unique ancient fresco was destroyed because workers, not understanding its historical value, mistook it for old plaster and simply removed it. This is an irreparable loss: the fresco can no longer be restored, only “repainted,” which in practice means forgery.
A crack that formed on one of the palace buildings as a result of construction work. © Alexei Konovalov (TASS)
International organizations have repeatedly condemned these works, pointing out that under the guise of restoration, Russia is effectively erasing the authenticity of the site, rewriting its content and meaning.
The occupation authorities insist that the Khan’s Palace is a monument of 18th–19th century architecture, effectively dismissing its true significance as the heart of the Crimean Khanate. In this way, Russia pursues two main goals: it legitimizes the destruction of Crimean Tatar heritage, including archaeological sites, and rewrites the history of the palace, turning it from a symbol of Crimean Tatar statehood into a provincial “exotic” palace for Russian emperors. This is a typical example of a policy aimed at erasing memory and diluting the identity of the indigenous people.
Russia has also appropriated around 4,095 Ukrainian cultural and architectural monuments on the peninsula that were under state protection. These actions are not simply about dismantling monuments or changing plaques on facades. Such appropriation is a direct violation of international law and another attempt to legitimize the occupation by rewriting the cultural map of the region.
This is part of a large-scale campaign to destroy Crimean Tatar heritage that began during Soviet times and has gained new momentum after the Russian occupation of Crimea. From the deportation of 1944 to today’s arrests, bans, renaming, and appropriation of cultural sites — we are witnessing a systematic process of displacing Crimean Tatars from the history, space, and collective memory of the peninsula.
How is the world helping to protect the Crimean Tatars?
Russia’s occupation of Crimea and its repressions against the Crimean Tatars have provoked a notable reaction from the international community. The UN General Assembly has repeatedly adopted resolutions condemning human rights violations on the peninsula, including the persecution of the Crimean Tatars, and recognizes Crimea as temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. The European Union, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and a number of other countries have imposed sanctions against Russia for the annexation of Crimea and human rights abuses. An important partner for Ukraine in protecting the Crimean Tatars is Turkey, which has repeatedly raised the issue of safeguarding the rights of the Crimean Tatar people at the highest political level, called on Russia to end the repressions, and has assisted in the release of Crimean Tatar political prisoners from Russian jails.
Despite these efforts, the situation on the peninsula remains critical. Today, about 250,000 Crimean Tatars live in Crimea — roughly 12% of the peninsula’s total population. Many have been forced to leave Crimea due to political persecution, pressure, arrests, and the disappearances of activists.
The importance of international solidarity cannot be overstated. Only consolidated pressure from the international community can stop the systematic violations of the rights of the Crimean Tatars, ensure the preservation of their cultural heritage, and create the conditions necessary for the safe return of the deported and displaced. Restoring freedom to Crimea is not only a matter of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but also a matter of safeguarding its indigenous peoples.
Anastasiia Stepanenko, grant writer, project manager, cultural critic, expert at the United Ukraine Think Tank