Isa Akayev
Isa Akayev is a Ukrainian from the Crimean Tartar ethnic group.[1] He is the commander of a unit of Ukrainia militia, drawn largely from Ukraine's Tartar population.[2] Some Muslims from other ethnic groups also serve in the unit. In June 2022 Reuters reported his militia had approximately fifty fighters.
During World War 2 Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of Tartars from Crimea because he claimed they might collaborate with the Soviet Union's German occupiers.[2] Akayev's parents and grandparents were deported from Crimea in 1944.[3] Akayev was born in Uzbekistan. He was only able to return to Crimea, from Kazakhstan, during Mikhael Gorbachev's reforms, in 1989, two years before the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Akayev fled the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014.[2]
Akayev's militia unit fought against Russian-backed Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region, prior to Russia's 2020 invasion of Ukraine.[2][4]
On February 28, 2022, shortly after Russia's attempt to conquer Ukraine, Akayev released a short video, requesting Russian Muslims to join the fight against Russia.[5]
In 2023 Meduza journalists Lilia Yapparova and Vera Mironova reported on the FSB recruiting informants from Russians who had volunteered as foreign fighters for Daesh, in Syria.[1] In that report they quoted extensively from Baurzhan Kultanov, a Muslim Russian, from Astrakhan, who had volunteered for Daesh in 2014.
Kultanov describes quickly growing disenchanted with Daesh, and managing to defect, within six months.[1] However, after Turkish officials denied by request for political asylumn, when they learned he had fought for Daesh, he was deported back to Russia, and once in Russia, was coerced to try to work as a mole, in Ukraine, and join Akayev's unit.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lilia Yapparova, Vera Mironova (2023-05-22). "‘You really are a terrorist’ How Russia’s FSB recruits former ISIS fighters — and tries to plant them in Ukrainian battalions". Meduza. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/05/22/you-really-are-a-terrorist. Retrieved 2023-07-02. "The FSB didn’t begin searching for Akayev until then, though the agency had been 'obsessed' with the 'Crimean Tatar underground' ever since the annexation of Crimea, Andrey Soldatov, an expert on Russia’s intelligence services, told Meduza."
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Max Hunder (2022-06-01). "Ukraine’s Muslim Crimea battalion yearns for lost homeland". Reuters (Yasnohorodka, Ukraine). https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-muslim-crimea-battalion-yearns-lost-homeland-2022-06-01/. Retrieved 2023-07-02. "When Russia annexed his home region from Ukraine in 2014, Akayev moved to Kyiv and formed the Crimea battalion, a small unit dominated by Crimean Tatars, the Muslim Turkic group indigenous to the Black Sea peninsula."
- ↑ Shamim Chowdhury (2023-01-04). "‘We can be drinking tea then, 10 minutes later, destroying a convoy’: Inside the lives of Muslim fighters taking up arms against Russia in Ukraine". Hyphen online. https://hyphenonline.com/2023/01/04/muslim-soldiers-in-ukraine-take-up-arms-in-the-war-against-russia/. Retrieved 2023-07-02. "Isa Akayev’s parents and grandparents were among those who were forced to leave. He was born in Uzbekistan but, like many others, he and his parents returned to Crimea after the collapse of the Soviet Union."
- ↑ "“Hostages of the Occupation”: Isa Akayev, participant of the anti-terrorist operation in the East of Ukraine". Crimean Tatar Resource Center. 2020-04-13. https://ctrcenter.org/en/4138-hostages-of-the-occupation-isa-akayev-participant-of-the-anti-terrorist-operation-in-the-east-of-ukraine-photo. Retrieved 2023-07-02. "The next hero is Isa Akayev. After the occupation of Crimea by Russia, he was forced to leave the peninsula and moved to Vinnitsa region, and later, on his own initiative took an active part in the anti-terrorist operation in the east of Ukraine."
- ↑ Isa Akayev (2020-02-28). "Isa Akayev, commander of the "Crimea" volunteer battalion, addressed the Muslims of #Russia.". Twitter. https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1498270287829340162?lang=en. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
