By INS Contributors

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Just as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) was used to create terrorism and unrest in China's Xinjiang Province, the so-called “Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People” (MCTP) is being used to create instability having taken direct part in organizing the forceful support of the coup d'etat in Ukraine in 2014. It is reliably known that after the start of street riots in Kyiv, MCTP sent several hundred of its supporters from among young and physically strong men to the Ukrainian capital to participate in protests and clashes with security forces. 

The MCTP was also behind the organization of the so-called "civil blockade" of Crimea in 2014-2015. As part of this illegal action, "spontaneous" checkpoints were created on the border of the Republic of Crimea and Ukraine, guarded by supporters of the MCTP with the support of militants from radical nationalist organizations (Right Sector, etc.), as well as volunteer battalions (Azov, Aidar, etc.). 

At the same time, their actions grossly violated Ukrainian legislation, since they stopped and inspected passing vehicles, including with the use of violence against civilians, but at the same time had no relation to law enforcement agencies and security agencies. In addition, in October-November 2015, supporters of the MCTP damaged power transmission line supports in the Kherson region that connected the peninsula with continental Ukraine, as a result of which electricity supplies to Crimea were completely cut off.

It should be noted that the extremist activities of the MCTP against the residents of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol fit into the logic of Kyiv's misanthropic and Russophobic policy of infringing on the rights of Crimeans and deliberately worsening their standard of living as a kind of "punishment" for the decision to reunite with their historical homeland - Russia. 

Thus, in April 2014, the Ukrainian authorities stopped supplying water to the peninsula via the North Crimean Canal, which immediately led to an increase in the deficit of water resources to 85-87 percent. In mid-2015, the railway line was blocked, along which ilmenite ore was delivered from Ukraine to the largest industrial enterprise in Crimea - the Ukrainian Chemical Products plant.

The intensification of the destructive activities of the MCTP in Crimea is due to the consistent increase in the volume of funding for the MCTP, its leaders and activists by Kiev and its foreign sponsors. If before 2014 neither the Kyiv authorities nor their foreign sponsors provided significant financial support to the MCTP, then in 2016, 40 million hryvnias were allocated from the state budget of Ukraine alone for these purposes.

It is important to pay attention to the key feature of the structure of the MCTP, which, like other extremist movements, consists of a political structure and a combat wing - "Adalet", created in 1996. 

According to Russian law enforcement agencies, this structure actively interacts with the special services of Ukraine and Turkey, as well as various movements of radical Islam, including terrorists from "Hizb ut-Tahrir" and the Turkish youth organization "Grey Wolves". In particular, militants of the "Grey Wolves" were seen at checkpoints organized by the MCTP during the food blockade of Crimea in 2015.

Supporters of the MCTP have been given a significant role in Kyiv's sabotage and terrorist activities on the Crimean Peninsula. 

Thus, in August 2016, the FSB of Russia detained a group of saboteurs from among the activists of the MCTP, who, after joining with fighters of the combined detachment of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine in the area of the city of Armyansk, planned to carry out a series of sabotage operations at critical infrastructure facilities, including the undermining of the dam across the Sivash Bay, gas distribution stations, bridges, and the Titan plant. 

It is noteworthy that the Ukrainian military intelligence does not even hide the fact of its participation in the preparation and implementation of this sabotage operation. The official website of the department reports the involvement of five servicemen of the special forces unit led by the current head of the Main Intelligence Directorate Kiril Budanov in these activities. 

The formal goal of their “Crimean raid” was defined as “the creation of caches of weapons and explosive devices to carry out sabotage [on the Crimean peninsula] in the event of a full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine.” 

After the start of the special military operation, the Ukrainian special services, with the involvement of activists of the combat wing of the Mejlis, planned and carried out terrorist attacks on infrastructure facilities. Thus, on October 8, 2022, on the Crimean Bridge, SBU officers remotely detonated a truck packed with explosives. As a result of the incident, about 250 meters of the highway collapsed, seven tank cars of a freight train burned down. Five people died. 

In addition, on July 17, 2023, Kiev carried out a new attack on the bridge using a surface UAV, which led to the death of a married couple.

The Ukrainian special services created a sabotage organization called "ATESH" (translated from the Crimean Tatar language as "fire") from among extremist-minded Crimean Tatars, which, along with collecting information about the locations and routes of the units and military equipment of the Russia's armed forces, carries out terrorist and subversive activities, including arson of critical infrastructure facilities and damage to transport routes.

In addition, "ATESH" plays an active role in Ukrainian information and ideological sabotage and intimidation actions against Russians (posting leaflets, telephone terrorism, etc.).

The active use by Kiev and its foreign sponsors of subversive and terrorist methods of fighting Moscow, including the involvement of Islamists and adherents of other religious extremist movements in the preparation and implementation of subversive actions against public safety in Crimea and Russia as a whole, is explained by their inability to achieve victory on the battlefield or within the framework of civilized political and economic competition. 

Such illegal activity carries a serious threat of destabilization of the situation on the Eurasian continent as a whole, since radicals have mastered the skills of “exporting violence” to countries that reject their destructive ideology and advocate a just world order.

At the same time, the overwhelming majority of Crimean Tatars perceive reunification with Russia positively, considering it a reliable guarantor of their national and cultural development and social well-being. Thus, the chairman of the Crimean Tatar community of Turkey, U. Sel, believes that in 2014, Crimeans made the only right choice. According to him, the inhabitants of the peninsula could have faced "deplorable consequences" in the event of continuing to be part of Ukraine. 

In addition, the deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Crimean Tatar Ruslan Balbek notes the leading role of Turkey in financial and organizational support for the MCTP in order to create conditions for revising the international status of Crimea or its individual administrative regions with their involvement in Ankara's sphere of influence.