Russia resettled million citizens to change Crimea demography, official says

The Russian government has resettled close to a
million of its citizens to the Crimea peninsula since its occupation that began
four years, Ukrainian Presidential Crimean Tatar Ombudsman Mustafa Dzhemilev
told the Ukrinform agency in an interview published on May 25. These new
residents, which he estimated 850K-one million are part of a deliberate policy
by Russia to change the demographics of Crimea and reduce the influence of its
Tatar population, which Dzhemilev said is a Geneva Convention war crime.

A letter between the Russian FSB and Crimean Prime
Minister Sergey Aksyonov, intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence, calls for more
repressive measures that include mass searches, infiltrations, arrests and
mobilizing Russian nationalist organizations, Dzhemilev said. “Russia is
currently repeating nearly the same strategy applied during the first
occupation under Catherine the Second,” he said, referring to the 18th century
Russian tsarina. “There wasn’t the ability to deport people then. There weren’t
railroad stations, railcars. They simply created unbearable living conditions,
forcing people to migrate. As a result, Crimean Tatars became a minority in a
short period.”  

Russian President Putin isn’t planning any concessions
in its conflict with the West over the future of Donbas and Crimea, prominent
Crimean Tatar journalist Ayder Muzhdabayev told the apostrophe.ua news site in
an interview published on May 29. “He will never agree to any concessions with
the current status quo,” he said. “I will say even more – as long as he’s in
power, he won’t agree to anything.” Putin also won’t allow any UN peacekeepers
to Donbas, he said. “He is going to conduct these talks endlessly, proposing
conditions that Ukraine will never agree to under this government,” he said.
“He is counting on a softer government coming, with which it will become
possible to agree to any pseudo-peacekeepers. That is, not surrendering the
border, but simulate that. Ukraine will nod and sanctions will begin to be
removed.”

Zenon Zawada: This latest
evidence makes it apparent that the Russians will not withdraw from Crimea for
as long as Putin is president, regardless of sanctions that are imposed. We
have consistently believed that Russia won’t agree to UN peacekeepers being
introduced in Donbas.

We agree with Muzhdabayev that Russia will continue
its occupation of Donbas and Crimea until at least the parliamentary elections
in October 2019, from which it hopes to gain a parliamentary minority, at
minimum. It will aim to transform this Russian-oriented minority into a
majority (as happened in 2006), and then remove the pro-Western president (as
was attempted in 2007 by Yanukovych).

We believe that Russia will consider withdrawing
from Donbas (by fulfilling the Minsk Accords) only if it fails to assemble a
Russian-oriented minority in Ukraine’s parliament after the 2019 vote. But we
believe its chances for achieving this minority are strong. And we believe that
Russian considerations for undertaking a continental war are just as likely as
fulfilling the Minsk Accords.