Rustem Umerov is at the center of attention of the Turkish mass media

Who is the candidate for the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Rustem Umerov and what is written about him in the Turkish media?

President Zelenskyi's announcement of the name of Rustem Umerov as a candidate for the post of Minister of Defense of Ukraine became top news not only in Ukrainian but also in Turkish media.

After all, the current head of the State Property Fund - a person who, at first glance, is far from the war - took part in the negotiations on the exchange of prisoners of war with the participation of Turkish President Recep Erdoğan and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman.

Therefore, the Turkish media also joined the discussion of the biography of the probable head of the Ukrainian defense department.

Anadolu (the government news agency) names Umerov as a representative of the presidential advisory council on interaction with Arab and Muslim countries.

Hürriyet (Türkiye's most popular publication close to the government) calls Rustem Umerov a key figure in President Zelensky's team of negotiators in the first months of the war and during the conclusion of agreements on the grain corridor.

Sabah (a powerful media group owned by Erdoğan's relatives) emphasizes Umerov's Crimean Tatar origins.

The opposition publication Sozcu (one of the three most popular media along with Hürriyet and Sabah) repeats word for word the same information as in the pro-government publications and calls Umerov the first Crimean Tatar to head the ministry.

Other editions, which are included in the top ten Turkish media resources, focused on the lesser-known (and highly questionable) aspects of Rustem Umerov's biography.

The left-republican Cumhuriyet and the nationalist "Yeni Çağ" (the latter is associated with the leader of the Good Party, Meral Akşener) focus on the education of Rustem Umerov at the Crimean lyceum for gifted children in 1993-1999. They call this lyceum part of the educational network of the Pennsylvanian preacher Fethullah Gülen, who in Türkiye since 2016 is considered the organizer of the military coup attempt. Both editions recall Rustem Umerov's participation in the "Future Change Leaders" (FLEX) program under the patronage of the US State Department.

Cumhuriyet emphasizes the role of Umerov in the release of the leaders of "Azov", which it calls a neo-Nazi group.

Left-wing publications such as Aydinlyk and Evrensel, which often broadcast Kremlin narratives, mention Rustem's older brother Ruslan Umerov (Arslan Omer Kirimly), who has been living in the USA since 2016, without any evidence linking both brothers with Gülenists, and so on claim without evidence that the Umerovs are called "American boys" in Kyiv.

The left-wing opposition resource ODATV went even further. After repeating the statement about Umerov's connections with the Gülen movement, the publication reports that it sent the following questions to the Ukrainian politician last year:

- There is news in the Turkish media that you belong to Fethullah Gülen's terrorist group. Is it so?

- Did you study in a boarding school owned by Gülenists?

- Do you meet fugitive Gülenists in Ukraine?

- Do you recognize the Gülen movement as a terrorist organization?

According to the publication's journalists, they never received answers to their questions from Umerov.

All Turkish publications - both government and opposition - name the fact that Umerov has been an assistant to the leader of the Crimean Tatar people, Mustafa Dzhemilev, for many years.