Bariiev: “The installation of monuments to Stalin on the peninsula is a conscious opposition to the very existence of the indigenous people of Crimea”

The Head of the Board of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, a member of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Eskender Bariiev, in an interview with Crimea.Realities, said that conscious Russian propaganda of the Stalin cult deals a very strong blow to the Crimean Tatar people, because it was because of him that they were subjected to the historical tragedy of deportation.

Bariiev believes that the Russian Federation is trying to restore the cult of Stalin and does this not only with the help of newspapers, but also by revoking the presidential term count. The Russian authorities understand that there is a specific population in Crimea – the descendants of the NKVD officers, ardent communists, and so on – who regard Stalin in a positive way.

“So the occupation authorities are trying to give such a message to the part of the Crimean society, which in 2014 expected precisely the restoration of the Soviet Union, and not the arrival of Russia. This purposeful Russian propaganda deals a very strong blow to the Crimean Tatar people, because it was because of Stalin that we were subjected to the historical the tragedy of deportation”,- he stressed, adding, that the installation of monuments to Stalin on the peninsula is a conscious opposition to the very existence of the indigenous people of Crimea from the Russian authorities.

The Head of the CTRC noted that the Russian authorities are trying to appropriate a victory in World War II, and the cult of Stalin as a “victorious leader” is part of this process.