With a large majority in Kiev, the Ukrainian parliament has confirmed the successor of outgoing Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov, nominated by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Rustem Umerov is of Crimean Tatar descent and has been campaigning for years for the liberation of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. For political observers, the occupation is a clear signal to the outside world.
Umerov, 41, who formerly headed the State Privatization Fund, is considered an experienced negotiator and was also involved in negotiations over the Turkey-UN-brokered Black Sea Grain Agreement, which Russia withdrew in July. He also took part in the negotiations with Russia a month after the start of the war in March 2022 and in the prisoner exchange negotiations.
Minister with Crimean roots
With the change of ministers, the key ministry appointed by the president was filled for the first time since the Russian invasion, more than eighteen months ago. Political observers also see this as a signal to the outside world. While the Ukrainian counter-offensive is underway, the important ministerial post is filled by a person whose personal history is closely linked to Crimea. His family was deported under dictator Josef Stalin.
Umerov himself was born in 1982 near Samarkand in what was then the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan. Like many deported Crimean Tatars, he returned with his family to the Black Sea Peninsula in the course of the political opening in the Soviet Union.
Source: Krone
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