An Autonomy for you?

Crimeans fought for Ukrainian Crimea with the communists in the already independent Ukraine. And some time later with Yanukovych and his party. Crimeans were for rights and democracy long before it became a trend.

"An autonomy for you?", "Where are you?", "Why don't you fight?" Recently, I am seeing more and more often similar accusations against Crimeans on Twitter, and more recently on Facebook. Observing this trend from its very inception, I was inclined to believe that the vast majority of such content is part of an organized informational attack, and most importantly, an attack from “porebrik” (slang word for Russia) that does not deserve attention and reaction. Obviously, I underestimated the scale and impact of these speculations.

Keeping in mind the well-known proverb that the devil is in the details, I consider it very important to highlight a number of key questions and emphasize that some of them do not have and are unlikely to receive clear answers.

1) Does anyone know how many Qirimli (Crimeans, Crimean Tatars) are now in the Armed Forces of Ukraine? 200, 500, 1000, maybe 2000? I would be very surprised if at least someone answers you. There are no such statistics, they simply are not kept. There may now be as many Crimeans in the Armed Forces of Ukraine as there are vegetarians or any other category for which no records are kept. I would also want to note that the majority of Crimean Tatars in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine do not advertise the fact of their military service. They have families and relatives who remained in the occupied territory. Were there cases when relatives of the militarymen living in the occupation became a target? Yes, and more than once. This threat is significant, tangible, and very real.

2) Next, I suggest to look at the ratio of the stuff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the total population of Ukraine. At the beginning of 2022, the maximum number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was 260,000. The last figure that the authorities called in the summer of 2022 is 700,000. At the same time, it is unknown if this figure includes only the Armed Forces of Ukraine or all paramilitary formations of the state. According to the State Statistics Service, on January 1, 2022, the population of Ukraine was 41.1 million, excluding the population in the temporarily occupied territory.

Therefore, if we take the maximum number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as of the beginning of 2022, it will make only 0.6% of the population of Ukraine. And if we take the more recent figures mentioned by the political leadership, it will make 1.7%. And we should remember that this increase was the result of mobilization under martial law. Fortunately, the Ukrainian state controls 80% of its territory, therefore, despite all the horrors of the war, the vast majority of the population was not captured by the occupation.

3) And what about Crimea? Is it known how many Qirimli live in Crimea itself? According to the 2001 population census, slightly less than 245,000 or 12.1% of the population of the peninsula. No one knows how many left after 2014. Relevant statistics were not kept, and the census conducted by the occupants in the fall of 2014 is not a source that can be trusted. We can only guess that the number of Crimeans who left Crimea as a result of the occupation can range from 15,000 to 30,000.

I emphasize that there are no statistics on the number of Crimeans in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. If we take a hypothetical and at the same time pessimistically low figure, for example, 1000, then we get about 0.4% of the total number of people, 85-90% of which live in occupation. Too little?

Applying an analogy, if you, for example, want to see 10,000 Crimeans who suddenly managed to quietly leave the occupied peninsula to volunteer for the front, you should demand and expect more than 2 million volunteers throughout Ukraine, who, by the way, find it much easier to get to picking centers. Without denying the fact of the devotion of thousands of volunteers, the number of military today is 700,000, and more than 400,000 of them were mobilized already during martial law.

4) Inconclusive talks about the creation of a national battalion of Crimeans as part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been going on since 2015. The reasons for the refusal can be guessed, but the fact that for the last 6 years the Crimean Tatars were not allowed to create their own battalion, remains.

5) The mass exodus from Crimea of ​​people who support Ukraine is a strategically absurd step, which will significantly complicate the return and liberation of the territory where the occupant is most firmly entrenched. Crimeans in Crimea, as the largest pro-Ukrainian-minded and close-knit group on the peninsula, are our eyes and ears. If you think that Crimea is lagging behind in terms of the armed resistance movement, let me remind you that such activities are being prepared systematically, and most importantly, in advance. Doubt? Then you can compare the activity and effectiveness of the partisan movement in the Kherson region (where the attack has been expected since 2014) and the Kharkiv region. Such work has never been carried out with the Crimeans, but for the national battalion, see paragraph 4 above.

6) Shouldn’t we also mention the reasons that are the answer to the question “why did the Crimeans not leave the peninsula en masse after 2014?” They fought for the right to return to their native land for 50 years. This fight began from the moment of forced exile and continues to this day. The Soviet regime executed almost half of the people. And despite the terrible scale of losses, Crimeans massively and desperately fought the Soviets to return home and to free other nations from the collective prison. Support for the independence of Ukraine by the indigenous people became decisive during the referendum in Crimea. Crimea later became an autonomous republic that served the majority and ignored those in need of protection.

7) By the way, with regard to autonomy, for which, according to some people, Crimeans do not actively fight, work, beg, run, squat (underline/add the necessary) and which they do not deserve.

The need to create a national autonomy for the indigenous people, which will protect their collective rights, entered the agenda decades before 2014 and 2022. Perhaps because of this, Crimeans today ignore accusations of the insufficient fight for Crimea. After all, their fight for the liberation of their native land, and later - the whole of Ukraine from Russian influence, began even before the declaration of independence. For most of the time, right up to the occupation, such resistance ran counter to the priorities of the state policy and the political leadership, which did not want to see threats to the statehood. The desire to change the format and philosophy of autonomy was and is based on values ​​and, in view of the political reality of the 90s, could not even be considered as political dividends for loyalty.

Now it may seem like a bad joke, but Crimeans fought for Ukrainian Crimea with the communists in the already independent Ukraine. And some time later with Yanukovych and his party. Having turned the words “stability and consistency” into a pre-election fetish, both the Crimean communists and Yanukovych and his allies could only consider Crimeans as enemies, because the vast majority of them stably and consistently supported pro-Ukrainian, pro-European political forces. In other words, Crimeans were for rights and democracy long before it became a trend.

8) Perhaps it is also worth reminding that the fight of the indigenous people against the occupation regime has continued and continues all these years. Qirirmli make up the majority among political prisoners in Crimea. The Mejlis, the highest representative, elected Crimean Tatar authority was banned in 2016. The first deputy head of the Mejlis, Nariman Dzhelal, is in jail and the occupants are preparing to announce a sentence of 15 years in September for allegedly “preparing for a terrorist act”, but in fact for active participation in the Crimean platform in August 2021. And also that the share of Crimeans on the scale of the whole opulation of Ukraine is about 0.5%.

So, if you also asked the questions at the beginning of this post, ask yourself if you have become a consumer of the Russian narrative and hybrid information attack, which once again offers a simple solution to a complex issue.

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