Friends in Mutual Need
Türkiye and Ukraine
Maxime Gauin
21 November 2023
The Crimean peninsula, which for a time was largely inhabited by Tatars and under a
kind of Ottoman protectorate from 1487 until its Russian annexation in 1783, is perceived
to be a cultural bridge between the two nations until today. Indeed, the Crimean Tatars
suffered tsarist brutalities, which reduced them to a minority, the majority becoming,
by immigration and replacement, Russian by the middle of nineteenth century (this is
still the case today).1
Then, the Stalinist deportation of 1944 emptied the peninsula of
much of its remaining Tartar population, with some opting to return starting in 1991.