Two hours before the premiere, Russian General Counsel in Crimea recommended nine war veterans who were colleagues of the main character, pilot Ametkhan Sultan, to refrain from going to the premiere. Among other things, he explained that the officially acknowledged fact of Stalin’s order of forced deportation of Crimean Tatars from Crimea at the end of WWII contradicts historical truth.
“Did I say anything new?” General Counsel Vladimir Andreyev said in a subsequent statement. “I don’t need your advice. All I said is absolutely official. You can record it and play it to any Crimean Tatar. My word and the word of Russia should be said, should be known – including my interview – so that the truth is told about the Great Patriotic War… This is exactly the theme of treason.”
As a result, Refat Chubarov, First Vice Chairman of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis and President of the World Congress of Crimean Tatars, insisted on the demand to deport the Russian General Counsel in Simferopol from Ukraine in his interview for Channel 5.
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“I believe that we, along with all normal people in Crimea, demand that the diplomat accredited here in Ukraine, in Crimea, does not insult Crimean Tatars as well as the entire Ukrainian society in the way he did,” Chubarov said. “It was the first time in the past 20 years – the years of our return to Ukraine – that we heard insults of Stalin and Andropov times, and this is in the independent Ukraine. But we have heard this from a diplomat of a neighbouring country. We could not tolerate this. We want him deported from Ukraine immediately. And I know that we will achieve this. We will not allow Russian General Consulate to work as long as it is headed by the person called a liar by the government body he represents (because he did not actually express Russia’s official stance), and the person we consider to be a Stalinist and a fascist.”
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is reported to have stated that it understands “the reaction to some inappropriate wordings used by the Russian representative without paying due attention to the sensitive issue that requires a thoroughly balanced approach in any situation.”
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On May 24, General Counsel Vladimir Andreyev announced that he does not agree with the Ministry’s stance and decided to resign. “I still stick to my opinion, to every word of it. I interpret the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as helpless, stupid and unprincipled embarrassment for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he said. “They make excuses for what I didn’t say and don’t support me on positions we can’t walk away from in any case. In fact, there should be punishment for anyone who writes such statements and allows them to be published.”
Source: Ukrayinska Pravda
