Crimean Tatars Protest Against Offensive Remarks From Russian Consul

On May 23 Interfax-Ukraine reported that about 300 Crimean Tatars held a demonstration outside the Russian Consulate building in Simferopol on Thursday demanding the consul’s expulsion from Ukraine, accusing him of defending the Stalin regime’s and mass deportation of the Crimean Tatar population from Crimea during World War II.

The demonstration was a reaction to a television interview in which the consul, Vladimir Andreyev, said there was “mass treachery” among Crimean Tatars during the Nazi occupation of Crimea.

The demonstrators were holding Crimean Tatar flags and Ukrainian national flags, banners reading, “Andreyev Out of Crimea!” and chanting, “Shame!”

The demonstration was led by Refat Chubarov, first deputy head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People and a member of the Crimean parliament, who claimed that nonviolence was a matter of principle for Crimean Tatars and promised that the demonstrators would comply with it.

Police cordoned off the building.

In an interview with ATR television aired on Tuesday, Andreyev advised former trainees and colleagues of Soviet pilot Amet-khan Sultan, who was on two occasions awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, against attending the premiere show of the film Khaitarma” which uses facts from the life of Sultan’s family to illustrate the story of Crimean Tatar deportation.

Sultan’s mother was a Crimean Tatar, and his father a member of the Lak ethnic group of the North Caucasus.

Russia could not be represented at an event “distorting the truth about the Great Patriotic War,” Andreyev said.

“The theme of collaborationism and help to the invaders must be present at all events” where the Crimean Tatars’ deportation is the theme, he said.

The interviewer, high-profile Crimean journalist Lilya Budzhurova, suggested that his statements might be seen as offensive among Crimean Tatars.

“Did I say something new?” Andreyev responded. “I don’t need your advice. All that I’ve said is absolutely official. Record it and play it to any Crimean Tatar. My word and the word of Russia must be known, including my interview, so that the truth about the Great Patriotic War should be known.”

“It is a treachery issue pure and simple,” he added.

On Wednesday, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry accused Andreyev of effectively defending the Crimean Tatars’ deportation and expressed hope that the Russian Foreign Ministry would upbraid him.