A new face of war. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiï Reznikov announced on Monday that he had submitted his resignation to Parliament, a day after the announcement of his replacement by Volodymyr Zelensky, following several corruption scandals at the ministry in the context of the Russian invasion.
To succeed him, the Ukrainian president said he had chosen Roustem Oumerov, a prominent leader of the Crimean Tatar community who represented Kiev in sensitive negotiations with Moscow. His nomination is due to be submitted for Parliament’s approval this week.
Deputy since 2019
Roustem Umerov, 41, was born in what was then the Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, where his family had been in exile under Stalin. He was a child when his family resettled in Crimea when the Tatars were allowed to return there in the 1980s and 1990s. He started in the telecommunications industry in 2004 and has been an MP since 2019.
In parliament, he was co-chair of the Crimean Platform, which coordinated international diplomatic efforts to reverse Russia’s 2014 annexation of the peninsula. For many years he was an adviser to the historical leader of the Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Dzhemilev. Russia ratified its annexation of Crimea in a referendum deemed illegitimate by Ukraine and its Western allies.
The Tatars, who make up 12-15% of the Crimean population, largely boycotted the referendum. As a result, Moscow banned the Mejlis, the traditional assembly of the Tatar Muslim minority, branding it an extremist organization with many members jailed.
Negotiations with Moscow
After the annexation of Crimea, as well as after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Roustem Oumerov was engaged on several occasions in low-key negotiations with Moscow, in particular over prisoner exchanges and civilian evacuations.
He was part of the Ukrainian delegation in the negotiations with Moscow, under the auspices of Turkey and the UN, which allowed the establishment of a maritime corridor that will allow the transport of Ukrainian grains through the Black Sea. Russia recently withdrew from the agreement, arguing that kyiv and the West were not allowing enough Russian exports through. Oumerov is in the same line as the Ukrainian executive regarding this war. “Donbass and Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia, are our red lines,” he told Turkey’s Anadolu news agency in May 2022, adding: “we will not give up our people or our land.”
In September 2022, Roustem Oumerov was appointed head of the State Property Fund, a prominent position in a country where the privatization process is rife with corruption. The Ministry of Defense left to him by his predecessor Oleksiï Reznikov is also cited in corruption scandals.
Source: BFM TV
