Documentation for Crimean Cossacks
May 21, 1994
The Guardian (London)
RUSSIAN nationalists in Crimea's regional parliament yesterday passed a series of resolutions that amounted to a declaration of independence from Ukraine and an open expression of contempt for the authority of President Leonid Kravchuk.
(...) The constitutional changes also give the regional government the right to raise its own militia and allow Crimeans to adopt dual citizenship.
(...) In a mood of separatist euphoria, the newly elected parliament approved legislation intended to undermine Kiev's influence in Crimea and pose a direct challenge to the authority of the Ukrainian army. It decreed the cancellation on Crimean soil of the national spring call-up, and insisted Crimean conscripts need serve only on the peninsula.
(...) Since being elected in January, Mr Meshkov has taken a cautious approach towards increasing autonomy, favouring small bureaucratic measures.
(...) A small group of uniformed Crimean Cossacks gathered outside parliament to "safeguard Crimean statehood". Their leader, Victor Melnikov, wearing camouflage fatigues and carrying a large hide whip, said Mr Meshkov had issued a decree reviving the Cossacks as an official para-military unit.
May 6, 2007
BBC Monitoring Kiev Unit
Cossacks, a pro-Russian paramilitary formation, appeared on the peninsula in 1992. Crimean Cossack units are officially registered as cultural NGOs. The Crimean Cossacks closely cooperate with the Russian Cossacks, holding joint military training sessions in Crimea. Cossacks train in specialized military camps, located in the Crimean mountains. Cossacks are allowed to carry firearms, whips and swords, as part of their uniform. They have military ranks. Cossacks are faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate and are considered as Christian radicals. The number of Cossacks in Crimea reaches a few thousand. They have taken part in all ethnic and religious conflicts in Crimea. The media report that the local authorities and Russian businessmen hire Cossacks to guard their property from Crimean Tatars. Four Cossacks were elected Crimean MPs and 28 local councillors (mainly, as members the Party of Regions) 2006.
April 17, 2009
BBC Monitoring Kiev Unit
The TV said that, in the incident, a group of Cossacks led by a local government official, Ihor Stratilati, arrived at the market and started to seize goods from vendors.
(...) Under the Ukrainian laws, the Cossacks can help police on duty as vigilante units and even carry firearms, acting as police patrols, but they have no right to seize goods and property, only police and courts can do this.
(...) Cossacks in Crimea act as paramilitary vigilante groups, running training camps in the mountains, taking part in raids (takeovers of government property) and land disputes with the Crimean Tatars. Most Crimean Cossacks have close ties with Cossacks in Russia, some becoming divisions of the Russian Cossack Troops. Cossacks gained notoriety for their hostilities with the Tatars, the indigenous population of Crimea.
Aug. 26, 2010
BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union - Political
The Russian Taganrog Cossacks and Ukrainian Zaporozhye Cossacks set up a training camp for the repulsion of a Muslim invasion right next to the Tatar holy places in the Eski-Kermen reserve. They marked the spot by putting up a huge oak cross on the mountain. When the Tatars saw it, they complained to the police and the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), expressing their indignation and demanding its removal. The formal reply of the SBU, according to the Cossacks, said that the removal of the sacred symbol would be technically impossible. So it remained where it was -- a cross standing on the ideals of the caliphate. A notice at the entrance to the Cossack camp warns th at it is a private Russian Orthodox facility. The buildings have thatched roofs and pigs are roaming around everywhere. These are not the usual Ukrainian pigs, however, but small Vietnamese pigs -- they taste better and require less care.
Cossack Sergey Yurchenko lives in Zaporozhye and organizes Orthodox defense against the Muslims.
June 24, 2011
BBC Monitoring Kiev Unit
Crimean Cossack organizations and pro-Russian parties and NGOs pitch a camp near the town of Novoozerne in western Crimea to protest against Ukraine's ongoing cooperation with NATO. The participants say that President Viktor Yanukovych has violated his pre-election promise to wind up the cooperation.
May 15, 2013
BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union - Political
Anna Perova and Viktor Khamrayev article headlined "Crimean Cossacks want to be on air" says that Cossacks and activists of Orthodox public movements in the town of Krymsk in Krasnodar Territory have conducted an unsanctioned rally in the premises of the Elektron radio station demanding that the anchor who, in their opinion, dared to use impolite statements about Cossacks and the Russian Orthodox Church, be sacked
April 24, 2014
BBC Monitoring Kiev Unit
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on 23 April detained the head of a Crimean Cossack association called Crimean Unit who reportedly organized and took part in separatist events in Crimea, the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN reported at 0951 gmt on 24 April, quoting the head of the SBU's press centre, Maryna Ostapenko.
Ostapenko told a briefing in Kiev on 24 April that the detainee took part in the seizures of Crimean administrative buildings and Ukrainian military units by groups of Russian saboteurs. He also coordinated pro-Russian Cossack organizations involved in the seizures of administrative buildings and SBU offices in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The detainee also organized the dispatch of Cossack groups from Crimea for separatist events in eastern Ukraine on the orders of Russia's FSB and was engaged in spreading anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk and Odessa regions, UNIAN said, quoting Ostapenko.
