Putin’s forced Military Mobilization of Crimean Tatars to Fight Ukraine

Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin started a vicious war attacking the independent state of Ukraine in February 2022 committing a trifecta of mass crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes establishing the Russian Federation as a terrorist state and criminal enterprise. Putin and Russia’s crime of genocide is being visibly carried out as the forced invasion and colonization of the State of Ukraine including Crimea and thereby the Indigenous Tatars. The Indigenous Karaites and Krymchaks are located on the Crimea peninsula and the Gagauzes originated in Odesa, and they are being forced into the Russian military. The corrupt Russian government is deliberately forcing the Crimean Tatars into the Russia military to fight forces in Ukraine. As Tamila Tasheva, Zelenskiy’s top representative for Crimea Tatars told reporters: “First they tried to buy us, then they tried to repress us and now they see mobilization as a way to try to simply get rid of us.”  Tasheva went on to explain that Tartar citizens in the Crimea told her that the are arriving “in their towns or villages and handing out summons.”

The Tatar people have a long history of being repressed by Russians. Before there was a Russia in the 18^th century. A Turkic-speaking people, the Tartar with a global population estimated at 6.9 million people with the Volta Tatars and the Crimea Tatars located in Volta and Crimea. The Crimean Tatars comprise about 700,000 people that adopted Islam in the 14^thcentury.

To avoid being forced into the Russian military Tatar men are actively escaping becoming captives via any means possible. The Tartar have long been opponents to the Russian government and have deliberately agreed among themselves that if forced into the Russian military to fight in Ukraine they will “surrender to the Ukrainian forces” risking getting “shot in the back by the Russians.”

The Crimean Tatars were among the first nations to approve the International Covenant on the Rights of Indigenous Nations (ICRIN) at a signing of this law in Geneva, Switzerland in 1994. The Tatar government pledged its commitment to the ICRIN that among other things affirms: “Military activities and the storage or disposal of nuclear or toxic materials or other hazardous materials shall not be permitted in the lands and territories of indigenous peoples, unless otherwise freely agreed upon by the peoples concerned.

Putin’s personal Russian mercenaries the Wagner Group are not only forcing the Tatars to fight Ukraine, but they are also attacking, killing and occupying indigenous peoples and exploiting natural resources in  Libya, Syria, Central African Republic, Mali, Ukraine and Sudan. According to US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield Wagner Group of mercenaries are exploiting natural resources and “these ill-gotten gains are used to fund Moscow’s war machine in Africa, the Middle East and Ukraine”.

The Crimean Tatars have not agreed to Russia’s annexation of their Crimea Territory and definitely have not agreed to forced enslavement by the Russian military.