Crimean Tatar Rustam Umarov will become the new Minister of Defense of Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Rustam Umirov, 41, as his new defense minister. He is Crimean Tatar. It is interpreted symbolically by many.

– This means that Crimea will never be forgotten. And this is good news, wrote former US ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul X/ Twitter.

– He is a Crimean Tatar, which will help keep the peninsula centered, wrote the famous Kiev Post journalist Christopher Miller The same social media.

The head of the Polish Foreign Policy Institute, Sawomir Debski, wrote on X/Twitter:

– Good luck to those who want to convince Umarov that Crimea will never become part of Ukraine again.

Crimea is a peninsula in the Black Sea, which Russia actually annexed in 2014.

Crimean Tatars are a Turkic ethnic group and reside in it CrimeaCrimeaUnder Catherine the Great, the Russians invaded Crimea in 1783. During World War II, Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of all Crimean Tatars. He claimed that they had collaborated with the Germans.. They have been Muslims since the fourteenth century.

This is the biggest change in Ukraine’s defense command since the start of the large-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.

– Oleksey Reznikov has gone through more than 550 days of total war, says Volodymyr Zelensky in his daily speech, according to the newspaper. Ukraineskaya Pravda.

Like many other Crimean Tatars, the Umarov family was also deported by the Soviet Union during World War II. On May 18, 1944, they were sent to what is today Uzbekistan.

The new defense minister was born there in 1982. After nearly 50 years in exile, the family returned home in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Rustam Omirov has actively worked for the rights of the Crimean Tatars and others in Crimea.

– He recently said in an interview with the site that many in Crimea are ready for guerrilla warfare ua lb.

– Umarov said: – I would urge the Crimean Tatars not to join the Russian army.

Parliament is expected to approve Umarov’s new defense minister this week.

– Zelensky says: I expect support from parliament for his candidacy.

Omirov has so far headed the State Real Estate Fund. He was also involved in many negotiations, including negotiations regarding grain exports across the Black Sea.

He also participated in the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in March 2022. According to the independent Russian media Meduza, the Kremlin and the Russian-controlled media accused him of spying for the United States in these negotiations.

– Umarov has good contacts both in the European Union and in the United States, writes the Ukrainian edition Forbes.

He has expertise in both technology and finance and has contributed, among other things, to the development of mobile phones in Ukraine.