In Geneva #Russia's rep Alexei Borodavkin called human rights violations in #Crimea a myth http://t.co/C3yQbB09W4
— Myroslava Petsa (@myroslavapetsa) September 27, 2014
Leonid Ragozin and Max Seddon have written an excellent piece for BuzzFeed on the plight of Crimean Tatars, which includes an extensive interview with one of their leaders Mustafa Dzhemilev (now in exile):
A legendary Soviet dissident who spent 15 years in Soviet prison camps and once went on a record 303-day hunger strike, Dzhemilev, 71, had resisted Putin’s considerable overtures to win him over only weeks earlier. Not long before the first Russian troops appeared on the Crimean peninsula in February, Dzhemilev was approached by a Russian businessman in the city of Sevastopol who said that Putin wanted to meet him. Unable to discern what Putin could want from him, Dzhemilev refused.
When Russia’s lighting-quick annexation of the peninsula shortly afterward made it clear what Putin wanted, Dzhemilev received another invitation to meet him, this time from Mintimer Shaimiev, the former longtime head of the Tatar minority in Russia. (The Tatars in Russia are related to the Crimean Tatars, but are far less independent-minded politically.) This was the first request for contact made by Russia at any level to a Ukrainian official since the invasion. Dzhemilev agreed, only to back out again after his wife asked him, “Why are you going to meet that bastard?”
Eventually, Shaimiev found a compromise and convinced Dzhemilev to talk on a special telephone in his Moscow office that, Putin said, had the power to reach him anywhere in the world at any time of day without fail. “He said, ‘We will solve anything the Ukrainians didn’t solve as soon as is humanly possible,’ like it would be heaven,” Dzhemilev said. “I was polite with him. I said, ‘We are not opposed to help, and Russia certainly owes us for [the Soviet deportations], but first you have to remove your troops.’
“Putin said, ‘That’s just what I expected you to say. Any patriot would say that. But let’s find out what the people want in the referendum,’” Dzhemilev continued. “I said, ‘The Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people has already made the decision to boycott this referendum. It’s illegal and pointless — you can’t hold referendums under occupation,’” he said.
“I told him, “Nobody’s going to recognize this referendum, and neither are we. And you talk about the Crimean people — there’s no such people. There’s the indigenous Crimean Tatar people, and there are settlers, who, of course, have the same rights as us, but not the right of self-determination you’re talking about,’” Dzhemilev said. “And he just kept saying, ‘referendum, referendum.’”
Then, Putin said that he was worried the Crimean Tatars would wind up entangled in “bloody misadventures,” and warned that Ukraine had been taken over by “fascists,” Dzhemilev said. “I told him, ‘Listen. We are very proud that we fought for our homeland all those years without spilling a drop of blood, ours or anyone else’s. But when a foreign soldier shows up on your land and starts imposing the order of a foreign country, then there’s no telling what’s going to happen.” The conversation ended there.
“I can’t go to Moscow now, so there’s no way I can reach him on that phone,” Dzhemilev said.
Read the entire article here
Important story by @leonidragozin & @maxseddon -- Threatened, Raided, And Exiled: Opposing Putin In Crimea http://t.co/NE2XDxXaM3
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) September 27, 2014
A great relief that Dmytro Potekhin has been freed: How I survived dungeon of Donetsk http://t.co/WhaAil5gih http://t.co/ztmhlB2Qiv via @FT
— Francis Fukuyama (@FukuyamaFrancis) September 27, 2014
U.S. Ambassador to Kyiv Geoffrey Pyatt has been introducing the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk:
Delighted to introduce @PennyPritzker to PM @Yatsenyuk_AP – discussed strong US support for economy reform pic.twitter.com/uQdYVrWLtO
— Geoffrey Pyatt (@GeoffPyatt) September 27, 2014
RT @USNATO Ukraineled Exercise Rapid Trident concludes battalionlevel field training exercise: http://t.co/j2474pNVYO pic.twitter.com/rGcAPuyJnI
— Geoffrey Pyatt (@GeoffPyatt) September 27, 2014
An extraordinary account of the complex machinations of Ukrainian oligarchs by @Leshchenkos http://t.co/KzIK2J0UV4
— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) September 26, 2014
War Photo: The child and the father. pic.twitter.com/O0y0b2sUM4
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) September 27, 2014
How I survived the dungeon of Donetsk: http://t.co/1XKR6XFnZe #FT
— roula khalaf (@khalafroula) September 27, 2014
#Ukraine's deputy Defence Minister Oleksandr Lishchynsky claims army is 97% ready for the winter, incl clothing, food, warm lodging
— Myroslava Petsa (@myroslavapetsa) September 27, 2014