“It looks like a Berkut throw”

Crimea is full of hostile signals

Half an hour after the capture of the Supreme Council, a Russian flag was hung on the roof of the building. And by lunchtime, some deputies began to arrive at the parliament. However, not for negotiations, but to participate in the "emergency session". At the time of signing the issue, 40 deputies were already in the building, including Speaker Konstantinov...

The capture of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Supreme Council of Crimea happened a few hours after the 20,000-strong rally of Crimean Tatars in the center of Simferopol. Early in the morning, people in camouflage drove up to the building of the Crimean parliament in several trucks and began to unload weapons in boxes. About a hundred pro-Russian activists who “protected the Soviet building from the Tatars” - they came to protect it already when the Majlis took the people home - fled. Although a couple of dozen remained, together with unknown militants they brought weapons into the building. After that, the activists were asked to go home and inform their acquaintances that the authorities in the republic are under the control of the “defenders of Crimea”.

Half an hour after the capture of the Supreme Council, a Russian flag was hung on the roof of the building. And by lunchtime, some deputies began to arrive at the parliament. However, not for negotiations, but to participate in the "emergency session". At the time the issue was signed, 40 deputies were already in the building, including Speaker Konstantinov.

“I was invited and I am also going,” deputy Sergei Aksenov, leader of the Russian Unity party, the most influential pro-Russian force in the autonomy, told me. - Colleagues, probably, again want to raise the issue of the status ( of the Crimea. - P.K. ). I can't say more. ( UPD Later today, Aksenov was appointed by the deputies of the Top Council of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea as the new prime minister of the autonomy. The government of Anatoly Mogilev was dismissed.)

“It looks like a desperate throw of our Berkut, which has nothing to lose: for the Maidan, they will all now have sentences,” Leonid Pilunsky, a Crimean deputy from the opposition People’s Movement of Ukraine party, shared with me. “They could pull off this takeover and become a cover force for the crazed pro-Russian separatists.

For the first couple of hours, the police still managed to keep a cordon off the Supreme Council. Crimean Prime Minister Anatoly Mogilev went to negotiations, but the invaders simply refused to talk to him. The authorities did not even stutter about any storming of the building. Much more likely was now the assault on the police cordon itself. Every minute the center was filled with supporters of unification with Russia. With St. Andrew's flags, tricolor, icons.

Why are you stopping us! a guy in sweatpants yells at the policeman. About forty other young people who sympathize with the putsch are immediately crowded with him. We should be together now! There with the men! We're Russians, bitch!

"We're at work," the policeman answered shyly. "Go away, I'm begging you."

"We're going to kill them all anyway!"

- Who will you cut? - I'm interested.

- Yes, these Tatars, e-mine, and Bandera, fucking fascists! Join brother! - the indignant guy looked at me and continued already offended: - Che, from Moscow, or what? So where are all your patriots? "Glory to Russia! Glory to Russia!”, “Churok beat!” — and where are you? They just dumped us!

- Don't fucking stand, let's go! a man said through a megaphone. Are the police with us or what? Forward!

And the crowd, having piled on a flimsy cordon in one line, moved towards the Council.

- We will stand until there is clarity about how Crimea should live now! came from the loudspeaker.

— And what about the Tatars? someone asked.

- Let the national minorities live as they lived, then we will not touch anyone!

As they say in Crimea, the separatists chose the “violent alternative” after their failed attempt yesterday to raise the status issue at an extraordinary session.

The Tatars then managed to actually disrupt the session. Three deputies were not allowed into the Council's premises - just that many were not enough yesterday for a quorum. Among other things, the protesters demanded the resignation of the speaker of the Supreme Council Konstantinov and the reformatting of the Crimean authorities with the introduction of national quotas. There has never been such a mass action of the Crimean Tatars. As noted in the republic, until recently, the majority in the community was practically isolated from political life, and the Tatar elites almost did not participate in formulating the Crimean agenda. The main lobbyist for the revival of the community was the Mejlis, while the Tatars themselves - there are 15 percent of them on the peninsula - are still poorly represented in the legislative and executive authorities.

The community began to warm up only after the Maidan. In a situation where the Crimean elites, frightened by the revolution, started talking about reunification with Russia, the Tatars turned out to be the only force that unequivocally condemned separatism. The local "Party of Regions" has already accused the Mejlis "of trying to use the power of the Maidan in order to undermine the disposition of forces in the autonomy."

Throughout the week, the calmness of the Crimea seemed to be tested for strength. First, the Russian military announced the strengthening of the regime at Sevastopol facilities. After that, the city decided not to recognize the new central government in Kyiv and chose a "people's mayor" at a rally of ten thousand people. In the same place, somewhere in the docks and on the berths of the base of the Black Sea Fleet, ex-president Yanukovych was hiding from the revolution, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The elites of the peninsula started talking in Simferopol about revising the status of autonomy. In response, the Right Sector threatened to send “friendship trains” to the separatists, in which revolutionary activists go to defend the integrity of Ukraine. And even the Russian military, who made a demonstrative rush to Yalta these days on several trucks, did not blow up the fragile peace in Crimea. But it was blown up by emissaries from the State Duma, who announced on Wednesday in Simferopol that Moscow would not abandon its own people and was about to start issuing Russian passports according to a simplified scheme. Deputies of the Supreme Council of Crimea Sergei Aksyonov and Sergei Tsekov, who met the Russians, initiated an extraordinary session of parliament the next day, where they gathered to discuss the “state of Crimea” and the issue of the resignation of the autonomy's Prime Minister Anatoly Mogilev. And Simferopol could not resist.

The story of passports and the change in the status of autonomy has its categorical supporters and opponents. Even on the day of the visit of the Russian deputy Slutsky, the Majlis of the Crimean Tatar people announced that they would prevent the spread of separatism on the peninsula. A spontaneous rally of Tatars gathered in front of the office of the Mejlis, who were waiting for the arrival of the head of the community Refat Chubarov from a meeting with the speaker of the Supreme Council Vladimir Konstantinov. Chubarov, officials of the Mejlis reported, had to persuade the speaker (formally, this is the main official of the autonomy, although in fact the prime minister has the last word) to cancel the session. But the negotiations ended in nothing. And Chubarov, who returned to the Majlis, right from the porch of the office, called on the Tatars to come out tomorrow to the Supreme Council. "They don't hear us, so let's make them hear!" he turned to the diaspora.

The next morning, in groups of 400-500 people, the Tatars began to arrive at the Supreme Council from different parts of the city. In a couple of hours, people with blue Crimean Tatar flags filled all the free space in front of the aircraft and blocked the approaches to the building. Russian-speaking activists with Russian tricolors also began to flock to him - however, there were significantly fewer of them.

Someone approached with icons, to which the Tatars shouted: “Allah Akbar!” The Russians answered: "Christ is risen!"

The two groups were separated by a narrow corridor along which reporters ran. The police guarded the doors of the Council at that time. Fights broke out every ten minutes. The Tatar protesters sprayed gas from canisters, in response they got hit on the heads with poles, but managed to push the Russians away from the Soviet. Some miracle did not lead to a serious collision.

“We stand for the integrity of Ukraine and European integration, because only in this way can we guarantee the future of the Crimean Tatar people,” Deputy Head of the Mejlis Nariman Dzhelal told me. “We see the victory of democracy in Ukraine, which will ensure our rights to cultural identity, to the preservation of the language and the people in general. Can the current Russian regime give us any of this? Many Crimean Tatars, it must be admitted, are afraid of a repetition of the repressions of the 1940s.

- But, let's say Russia would give you what you want ...

- If Russia showed such readiness, yes, then it would be possible to talk about some kind of closer relations with Russia or even about an alliance. But so far Russia has been sending only hostile signals. Until now, she has not even recognized or apologized for the expulsion of our people and, in fact, their destruction, and this is a fundamental point...

Simferopol