Kyiv, March 6, 2014. Following the reaction of Ukraine\u2019s officials, different groups of the country\u2019s diverse population voiced their concern over false statements recently made by Russia\u2019s President Vladimir Putin. For instance, Ukrainian Jewish community slam Putin\u2019s fabricated declaration of the elevated level of anti-Semitism in Ukraine. Concurrently, the Sunni Muslim population of Ukraine, Crimean Tatars, come together as patriots of Ukraine who oppose Russia\u2019s de facto invasion of the peninsula. <\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s population has been diverse for many generations. Interestingly, \u201csociologists have found that Maidan\u2019s social, regional and ethnic base was broad,\u201d reads a recent article in the New York Times. It also stated that the series of World Value Surveys found a shift in the past decade \u2014 across all regions and ethnic groups \u2014 from \u201csurvival values\u201d of the industrial era toward post-industrial \u201cself-expression.\u201d<\/p>\n
As if to prove the point, Russian-speaking Jewish businessmen, managers, public figures, scientists and scholars, artists and musicians living in Ukraine addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin in the open letter on behalf of the multinational people of Ukraine, Ukraine’s national minorities, and the Jewish community. The Jews give Putin the credit for being hard to fool, yet he was depicted as \u201cconsciously picking and choosing lies and slander from the massive amount of information on Ukraine\u201d.<\/p>\n
The letter states, that Russian-speaking or ethnic Russians in Ukraine are not being harassed in any way and that their minority rights are not being violated; the signees of the address also condemn Putin\u2019s backing the lies voiced earlier by Ukraine\u2019s former President Yanukovych, namely: \u201c\u2026Kyiv is full of armed people who have begun to trash buildings, places of worship, churches. Innocent people have begun to suffer. People have simply been robbed and killed in the street…\u201d<\/p>\n
The Jewish community rebuts President Putin\u2019s claims about the alleged elevated level of anti-Semitism in Ukraine retorting with the fact that last year Jewish organizations have noticed growth in anti-Semitic tendencies in Russia.<\/p>\n
With Russia tightening its grip on Crimea, the country\u2019s leadership seems to underestimate another Ukrainian minority \u2013 the only native people to the Crimean peninsula \u2013 Crimean Tatars. With Tatars composing about 13 percent of the Crimean population, their level of self-organization and patriotism is something Russia will have to deal with at some point. The people who were first deported by the Soviets in 1944 then repatriated during Gorbachev\u2019s presidency, they have no other home than Crimea, which slams the widespread notion supported by pro-Russian population \u2013 that Crimea \u201chas always been Russian\u201d. With Russian intervention, the Tatars went from being the Euromaidan revolution heroes to being isolated and pushed away from power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"