You're reading: Crimea blockade activists want to form battalion to liberate peninsula

Activists who blockaded Crimea plan to stay and form a battalion which will eventually be used to liberate the peninsula that has been under Russian occupation since March 2014.

Lenur Islyamov, a Crimean Tatar and one of the organizers of the blockade, told KotTV on Jan. 6 that the new battalion will control the administrative border between Ukraine’s Kherson oblast and occupied Crimea together with the Ukrainian border security forces.

A land transport blockade organized by a mixed group of Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian nationalists started on Sept. 20, 2015. Following pressure from activists, the Ukrainian Cabinet announced an official trade blockade with the peninsula on Dec. 16. Activists have since removed the roadblocks. According to Ilyamov, this means that those involved now have time to create a battalion, from there “they will be prepared to enter Crimea.”

The activists believe that preventing food and other supplies from entering the peninsula will force Russia to fulfil their demands, including the release of Ukrainian political prisoners and ensuring human rights in Crimea.

A power outage has also been affecting Crimea since Nov. 21 when unknown activists blew up power pylons in Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast, close to the Crimean border. Power was briefly restored to fulfil requirements through a combination of Russian and Ukrainian supply lines. But a further pylon on Ukrainian territory was sabotaged on Dec. 30 and residents are still suffering from major blackouts.

Islyamov said in his interview with KotTV that Crimea will lead to Russia’s downfall:

“Crimea is a toxic asset that (Russia) swallowed that will break the country up into components,” the activist said.

When the Crimea is returned to Ukraine, said Ilyamov, it will be Crimean Tatar “like it was before” and not “pseudo-Russian, pseudo-Ukrainian, pseudo-Tatar.”

Human rights activists monitoring the situation expressed alarm at the blockade.

“If prior to these actions it was possible to definitely say that Russia was the only player permanently violating human rights in Crimea, and that for the restoration of these rights it would be necessary to have the peninsula de-occupied, now that is not the case,” Vissarion Aseyev of the Yalta-based Almenda human rights group told the Kyiv Post in an interview on Dec. 10.

The situation is also turning previously passive Crimean residents against Ukraine, a Kyiv Post journalist found during a recent trip to Crimea.

Proof of Crimean dissatisfaction with Kyiv policy, according to the Kremlin, was demonstrated by a recent poll which asked residents: “Do you or do you not support signing a commercial contract with Ukraine for delivery of electricity to Crimea and Sevastopol, if it says that Crimea and Sevastopol are part of Ukraine?”

VTsIOM, the state-owned polling organisation, surveyed 1,000 residents, of which 94 percent opposed the signing of the contract.

Kyiv Post staff writer Isobel Koshiw can be reached [email protected]