President Volodymyr Zelensky named Rustem Umerov as his option to be Ukraine’s subsequent protection minister, choosing a distinguished member of the Crimean Tatar ethnic group who has performed a key function in negotiations with Russia because the begin of the conflict.
In asserting his determination on Sunday, Mr. Zelensky was transient. “Mr. Umerov,” he stated, “doesn’t want any further introductions.”
Although a member of an opposition political celebration, Mr. Umerov, 41, has taken on a number of essential roles for the federal government because the Russian invasion final yr. He was the chief Ukrainian negotiator of an settlement that allowed Ukraine to export a few of its grain, and a distinguished negotiator on prisoner exchanges.
A former funding banker, Mr. Umerov is a lawmaker with the Holos celebration, which is in opposition to Mr. Zelensky’s Servant of the Individuals celebration. He served as a key consultant for Ukraine in peace talks with Russian diplomats within the early months of the conflict, and was certainly one of a number of folks, together with the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who reportedly suffered signs related to poisoning simply earlier than negotiations in Istanbul in March final yr.
Russia has persecuted the Crimean Tatars, who’re predominantly Muslim, because it illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, concentrating on them for arrests, Ukrainian authorities say. A lot of their leaders have fled to territory managed by Ukraine.
Mr. Umerov has been clear that he’s aligned with Mr. Zelensky on refusing to cede any Ukrainian territory to Russia. The Donbas area in japanese Ukraine and Crimea are “our crimson traces,” he instructed the Turkish state information company Anadolu final yr, including, “We is not going to surrender our folks or our land.”
For the previous yr, Mr. Umerov has been the chairman of Ukraine’s State Property Fund, which is answerable for privatizating state belongings. Within the first half of 2023, the fund reported its largest proceeds in 10 years, bringing in $49 million by auctioning off state property, together with the Ust-Dunaisk seaport within the Odesa area.
Widespread privatization in Ukraine, he instructed Reuters, would “be the final nail in Communism’s coffin.”
Valerie Hopkins contributed reporting.
