Seven years after Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, international attention to the occupation has dwindled.
To reverse this distressing trend, Ukraine held a massive diplomatic event to put the Kremlin’s military invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 back in the spotlight. Nearly 50 nations put Russia on notice that it will not forgive or forget until Vladimir Putin returns Crimea to Ukraine. The event, called Crimea Platform, took place on Aug. 23.
Russia reacted in the best traditions of an aggressor dictatorship.
Prior to the summit, Russia’s officials said that the Crimea Platform poses a threat to Russia’s territorial integrity and is a “hostile” move on Ukraine’s part. As absurd as it is, it’s not new. Russia keeps acting like a lucky thief who pretends that the stolen belongings are his own since no one cared enough to punish him.
We anticipated that, after the Crimea Platform, Russia would retaliate by pressuring Ukraine on various levels politically and economically.
But Russia did something much worse. It started individually persecuting those who supported the Crimea Platform, like Nariman Dzhelyal, a leader of Crimean Tatars, indigenous people of the peninsula.
Dzhelyal came all the way from Crimea to Kyiv to attend the summit. Soon after his return home, Russia’s security forces detained him for two months. He is accused of aiding a group of alleged saboteurs blow up a gas pipeline that was damaged in Crimea on the same day as Crimea Platform took place in Kyiv.
The charges are almost symbolic: Ukraine has unsuccessfully tried to block the construction of another gas pipeline, the Russian-German Nord Stream 2.
Now Dzhelyal faces 13.5 years in jail for the crime he denies committing. Along with him, the other four Crimean Tatars were detained. Almost 60 others were brought for questioning for protesting against Russian officials’ attack on Crimean Tatars.
Even for Russia, it’s a massive crackdown.
It’s also a continuation of Russia’s policy of pressure against Crimean Tatars in the occupied peninsula. It constantly persecutes members of Mejlis, a representative body of Crimean Tatars. Dzhelyal is the first deputy head of Mejlis. The most high-profile members — Mustafa Dzemilev and Refat Chubarov — had to move to mainland Ukraine. Dzemilev is banned from entering Crimea, and Chubarov was sentenced to prison in absentia by a Russian court.
Two deputy chairpeople of Mejlis, Akhtem Chiygoz and Ilmi Umerov, were arrested under similar far-fetched grounds in 2016. They were released six months later thanks to the mediation of President of Turkey Recep Erdogan.
What world leader will help Ukraine release Dzhelyal and others this time? Any volunteers?
We do not want this brave and bright person to repeat the fate of his fellows and spend half a year — or even more — behind bars.
All the leaders who signed the declaration of Crimea Platform, declaring their support for Ukraine and Crimea as its part, must act now.
With this recent crackdown in Crimea, Russia is testing the West’s patience.
The West must respond. Put more sanctions on the aggressor. Act now, show the Kremlin that you’re not a crowd of impotent diplomats. Don’t be an accomplice to a crime against humanity.
