Pity the Crimean Tatars. Stalin forcibly removed them to Central Asia for supposedly collaborating with the Nazis, even though they didn’t collaborate any more readily than any other of the USSR’s oppressed minorities. They were allowed to return to their homeland 20 years ago following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, only now to face this:
Crimean Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliyev said in an interview with RIA Novosti on Tuesday the new government in Crimea, where residents voted Sunday to become part of Russia, wants to regularize the land unofficially taken over by Crimean Tatar squatters following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“We have asked the Crimean Tatars to vacate part of their land, which is required for social needs,” Temirgaliyev said. “But we are ready to allocate and legalize many other plots of land to ensure a normal life for the Crimean Tatars,” he said.
If Putin is looking to prevent ethnic tensions from slowing down the complete assimilation of Crimea into the Russian Federation, this is probably a bad way to do it.
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