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Rustem Enverovich Umerov

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy replaced Oleksii Reznikov as defense minister. Zelenskyy said the Ukraine war effort needed a "new approach". He nominated Rustem Enverovich Umerov, a former people's deputy of Ukraine, to become the new defense minister. Umerov is the head of the country's State Property Fund. The replacement came as Zelenskyy continued a crackdown on corruption in government ministries. In general, during his career, Rustem Umerov built an impeccable reputation - his name had never appeared in corruption schemes, scandals or criminal cases. Umerov is also a delegate to the Kurultai of the Crimean Tatar people and adviser to the leader of the Crimean Tatar people, Mustafa Dzhemilev.

He is known for being a skilled negotiator and anti-corruption campaigner. Umerov was a member of the Ukrainian team that negotiated with Russia in March 2022, a month after Russia's invasion. He also participated in talks on the Black Sea Grain deal and prisoner exchanges. He was skeptical that Russia would abide by the Black Sea Grain deal. Umerov's background in economics and political negotiation is expected to be a strength for the defense ministry. He is expected to play a key role in securing new deals for Ukraine as it continues to seek financial and military aid from allies.

Rustem Enverovich Umerov was born on April 19, 1982 in the city of Bulungur, Samarkand region (Uzbekistan) into a family of deported Crimean Tatars from Alushta. Umerov grew up in a family of engineers - his father Enver worked as a process engineer, and his mother Meryem worked as a chemical engineer, he has an older brother - Omer Kyrymly Aslan. They come from the Crimea, but on May 18, 1944, the Umerov family was forcibly deported, together with the entire Crimean Tatar people, from their historical homeland to Central Asia and Siberia. The family was able to return to their native Crimea [possibly in the early 1990s, though other sources report that in the late 1980s, the family returned to the Crimea].

After repatriation, he studied at a Crimean boarding school for gifted children in Tankovoe, which until 2014 was financed by private investors from Turkey. After he graduated from the gymnasium in the Crimea, He was a scholarship holder of the American FLEX "Future Leaders Exchange Program" program for high school students, and spent a year in an American family in the USA.

At the National Academy of Management (Kyiv, Ukraine) he received a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's degree in finance. He also has a second higher education, which he received at the Institute of Applied System Analysis of the National Technical University of Ukraine "I. Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute" . There Umerov received a diploma in the specialty "Computer Science and Information Technology".

From 2003 to 2019, he held senior positions in various companies operating in the field of mobile communications, the Internet, communications, marketing, and logistics.

In 2003, he began his career at lifecell (a mobile operator in Ukraine). From 2003 to 2007, he worked in the GSM/TDMA network development department as the head of the website management and legal support department. From 2007 to 2010, he was the head of the procurement, logistics, contract management department. In 2010, he was responsible for sales at Lifecell and customer relations. In the same year, he moved to ICG Investments, where he worked as a Managing Director. In 2011, he moved to the same position at iCapital.

In 2013, he became a co-founder of the investment company ASTEM and its ASTEM Foundation. The Foundation funded the Ukrainian New Leaders Program at Stanford University. ASTEM manages investments in communications, information technology and infrastructure.

In parallel with his work in these companies, Umerov was engaged in social activities and founded many foundations. He was engaged in business in the United States, founded a number of Crimean Tatar public organizations said by Russian sources to be controlled by American funds. Their work was focused on the development of regional representations of the Crimean Tatars on the territory of Ukraine, as well as strengthening the social, cultural and informational dialogue in the Crimean Tatar community in Kyiv and other cities of Ukraine.

In 2007 he became a co-founder of the public organization "Fellowship of the Crimean Tatars". Their work was focused on the development of regional representations of the Crimean Tatars on the territory of Ukraine, as well as strengthening the social, cultural and informational dialogue in the Crimean Tatar community in Kyiv and other cities of Ukraine. Also in 2007, Umerov also became a co-founder of the international organization "Bizim Qirim", the youth organization of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars, whose goal was to preserve national interests, promote the restoration of political, socio-economic, cultural, linguistic and religious rights of the Crimean Tatar people.

Since 2007, he was an adviser to the former head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, banned in Russia, Mustafa Dzhemilev, who was sentenced in absentia to three years in prison by the Russian-controlled Supreme Court of Crimea on charges of illegal border crossing, as well as illegal acquisition and careless storage of firearms, which resulted in the death of a person. During the period when the peninsula was part of Ukraine, the Mejlis received significant funds through the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA). In these schemes, the Krym Foundation, controlled by the Mejlis leaders, was actively involved. The owners of a serious business, Rustem Umerov and his brother Ruslan, were advisers to the People's Deputy Dzhemilev on economic issues and made a significant financial contribution to the activities of the Mejlis.

In the period from 2011 to 2013, he was a co-founder and president of the Crimean Development Fund, through which Russian sources claim the main financial flows from Turkey passed. His work was aimed at promoting the social activity of the inhabitants of Crimea, the formation of a responsible community and overcoming the consequences of a large-scale catastrophe - the genocide and deportation of the Crimean Tatar people in 1944.

In 2012, Umerov became a co-founder and board member of the Crimean International Business Association, which was involved in the development and implementation of strategies for the development of the Crimean economy. The organization also worked to support small and medium-sized businesses, introduce promising innovative technologies, develop international cooperation and improve the investment climate in Crimea.

In 2012, the Umerov family initiated the restoration of the Orta-Jami mosque located in Bakhchisarai. The architectural monument of the 16th-17th centuries was restored at the expense of financing from the family's personal funds. It also served as a start for a national project for the restoration of cultural and historical heritage. On August 16, 2013, the grand opening of the reconstructed mosque took place. By the way, for more than 95 years, the mosque did not receive visitors and was closed.

In 2013, together with his brother, he founded an investment fund - ASTEM Foundation . It focuses on improving public life by supporting initiatives in the areas of social innovation, regional communities, education, medicine, sports, culture, human rights and religious freedoms within the vision and mission of the organization related to predicting new challenges in the future. In addition, the foundation is one of the donors of the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders program at Stanford University, designed to train Ukrainian politicians, lawyers, social entrepreneurs, businessmen, and leaders of public organizations.

Later, in 2014, Umerov founded the Evkaf charitable foundation , which provided assistance in the development of Muslim communities. In the same year, he founded the "Cultural Heritage Fund", which carried out its activities in the interests of the indigenous peoples of Crimea. The organization also took care of protecting the rights and fundamental freedoms of citizens in the field of education, culture, art, protection of cultural heritage, health and the environment, social protection of citizens and development of territorial citizens. Umerov is also a co-founder and member of the Board of Trustees of the Crimean National Wealth Fund , an international charitable organization that funds strategic national programs and supports the most socially disadvantaged Crimean Tatars.

In November 2018, Rustem Umerov financed the restoration of the Ukrainian tug "Yana Kapu", which participated in actions in the Kerch Strait. Russian border guards rammed the ship and detained the border violators, after which the tug crew was convicted and returned to their homeland as a result of the exchange. The ships captured by the border guards were also returned to Ukraine in an incapacitated state. In May 2022, the ASTEM Foundation repaired, one of the co-founders of which is Rustem Umerov the Yany Kapu raid tug of the Ukrainian Navy, which was captured by Russia in November 2018 near the Kerch Strait. The fund is also a partner of the Kyiv School of Economics.

From 2019 to 2022 he was a people's deputy of Ukraine from the party Holos ["Voice"]. Rustem Umerov began his political activity in 2019 - at the early parliamentary elections to the Verkhovna Rada he was elected a people's deputy. He was also the secretary of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Committee on Human Rights, De-occupation and Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories in Donetsk, Lugansk Regions and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the City of Sevastopol, National Minorities and Interethnic Relations. In addition, Umerov also held the position of Deputy Head of the Permanent Delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

It was especially important for Umerov to liberate the island from Russian invaders, because this is his homeland. Therefore, in his activities, he made considerable efforts to ensure that Crimea is de-occupied. So, in December 2020, the Crimean Platform inter-factional association was created in the Verkhovna Rada , where Umerov was elected co-chairman of the association. In his work, he communicates with the state bodies of Ukraine on the exchange of Crimean political prisoners and prisoners of war. Umerov has experience in the issue of the release of political prisoners, because in 2017 he contributed to the return of the Crimean Tatars Akhtem Chiygoz and Ilmi Umerov to Ukraine.

Umerov was active in politics and worked to ensure that the rights of the Crimean Tatar people were protected. So, he was the initiator of the bill on the abolition of the free economic zone "Crimea" . Umerov also worked to restore the historical and political rights of the Crimean Tatars at the state level. Actively lobbied for the adoption of two bills important for the Crimean Tatars: on indigenous peoples and the status of the Crimean Tatar people. On his initiative, on July 1, 2021, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a number of important bills, including one on the indigenous peoples of Ukraine. In total, during his work as a people's deputy, Umerov, in co-authorship with his colleagues, registered almost 100 bills.

In 2020, he joined the group for the development of the "state strategy for the de-occupation of Crimea and Sevastopol" under the National Security and Defense Council. Until the Crimean Platform was created, Umerov in March 2020 initiated parliamentary hearings on the de-occupation and reintegration of Crimea and Sevastopol. He worked tirelessly on this issue and in September 2020 joined the group for the development of the state strategy for the de-occupation of Crimea. In addition, Umerov is one of the authors of the draft law establishing the procedure for recognizing "stateless persons" . Thanks to this document, people could receive a certificate confirming their identity and establishing the legality of residence on the territory of Ukraine. By the way, the law came into force on July 18, 2021.

As a member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, he became a co-author of the bill "Regarding attempts to resume large-scale water supply through the North Crimean Canal." The document provided responsibility for calls to somehow return the water supply to the inhabitants of Crimea. "The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine declares that the issue of large-scale water supply to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol can only be considered in the event of the restoration of Ukraine's state sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula and the adjacent waters of the Azov and Black Seas," the adopted bill said.

At the international level, Umerov was the co-chair of the group for inter-parliamentary relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Turkey. In addition, he is a member of the Friendship Group for Inter-Parliamentary Relations with the State of Israel, the People's Republic of China, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the United States, Japan and Canada.

During the pandemic, Umerov was the author of the law on paying sick leave to doctors in connection with COVID-19 and initiated the redistribution of funds from the Fund to Combat Coronavirus to ensure the educational process and quality education under quarantine.

With the start of a full-scale invasion, Umerov was a member of the Ukrainian delegation in negotiations with Russia. In July 2022, he was elected Chairman of the Interim Commission of Inquiry on monitoring the receipt and use of international logistical assistance during martial law. In February 2022, he joined the delegation of Ukraine to participate in negotiations with the Russian Federation on the preparation and approval of a draft treaty on security guarantees for Ukraine. In March 2022, he was part of a group from Kyiv that took part in peace negotiations with Russia, which took place in Belarus. At the same time, there was information in the media that they allegedly tried to poison Umerov, but he himself denied this.

In 2022, Umerov left the Voice party and since September 7, 2022, he served as Chairman of the State Property Fund of Ukraine, which deals with privatization and lease issues, and also manages state property. He reporrted "over the course of a year, our team managed to transform the management of state assets, unite 65% of state-owned enterprises in FSMU and create new products - the Sovereign Fund, the Land Bank and the Real Estate Fund.... Over the course of a year, the new team managed to unite more than 2,300 state-owned enterprises in the Fund, restore privatization and attract investments to support the Defense Forces on a daily basis."

During the year 2022, the economic effect of privatization amounted to 5.2 billion hryvnias - of which 3.8 billion went to the state budget, another 1.4 billion were taxes and returned debts. The privatization process is only gaining momentum and every month it brings in hundreds of millions of hryvnias, which go to support the Defense Forces. The sale of unprofitable enterprises not only allows Ukraine to get rid of the burden that generates losses every year. Such assets are attractive for the implementation of brownfield projects, when a new investor restores them.

On August 4, 2023, he wrote a letter of resignation from his position of his own free will.

Ukrainian media wrote about Rustem Umerov as a person "with Bankova". Bankova is the name of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine. The offices of the Presidential Administration are located on Bankova Street in Kyiv, Ukraine. Most of the street is closed to vehicles and is pedestrianized. He is associated with the head of the President's Office Andriy Yermak. The independent press was discussing corruption scandals, against which the current Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov resigned, and they emphasized that Bankovaya sought to take absolute control of financial flows from NATO countries.

“However, it is wrong to reduce Umerov’s personality to mere relations with Yermak. He has fairly extensive international ties, including in the United States (from the time when he was an assistant to the head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis * Mustafa Dzhemilev, accompanying him on trips abroad) "He also has very close relations with the Turkish authorities. In political circles, they even say that Umerov can contact Erdogan faster if necessary than representatives of the Ukrainian authorities," the Ukrainian edition of Strana.ua writes in its material.

Yuri Butusov, editor-in-chief of one of the Ukrainian media, spoke out against the appointment of Rustem Umerov to the post of defense minister. According to him, this is "a person far from the war", who has no action programs and no understanding of what to do. "A person will somehow learn in a new higher position. Perhaps he will try to do it in good faith, try, but he will still learn, and spend time not on making decisions, but on searching and studying problems unknown to him. <> The main thing is that that he should not interfere with Yermak's people - Sharapov and others - to continue to resolve all financial, property and information issues of the Moscow Region," Butusov believes.

The new appointment of the Ukrainian authorities is a purely formal step that will not have a significant impact on the course of hostilities. This opinion was expressed by political scientist and military expert Ivan Konovalov on the radio "Shutnik". “Obviously, Umerov, judging by his career, knows how to track financial flows, manage them, hide what they need. He suits Zelensky. That is, this replacement does not take place against the backdrop of contradictions. They change one of their own for another of their own," the expert noted.

Former deputy of the State Council of Crimea Ruslan Balbek said that Umerov is a pupil of the Turkish opposition leader Fethullah Gülen hiding in America and a protege of the United States. He stated this in a commentary to RIA Novosti. "The candidacy of the new Minister of Defense is best suited for a country that does not decide anything on its own. This person has nothing to do with either the Ukrainian or the Crimean Tatar people, since he was brought up in the penates of the preacher Fetulah Gülen, and received a political facet within the walls of the International Republican Committee United States (IRI)," Balbeck said. According to the politician, the appointment of a new minister may be due to the fact that the old one "didn't know how to properly share" [the implausible implication being that Reznikov was insufficienty corrupt, but that Umerov will be sure that every can wet their beak].

Umerov and two of his former deputies at the agency were currently the subject of a corruption investigation. The High Anti-Corruption Court (VAKS) of Ukraine opened the probe in August after receiving reports that Umerov had obstructed an embezzlement investigation and covered up the sale of electricity below market prices by Tsentrenergo, Ukraine’s only state-owned electricity-generating company. Summing up the shakeup at the Defense Ministry in Kiev, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated on Wednesday that Zelensky had “fired one defense minister over corruption but would not launch an investigation and instead appointed another minister, who is being investigated for corruption.” Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov is “even more corrupt” than his predecessor Aleksey Reznikov, American journalist Seymour Hersh reported on 07 September 2023, citing an anonymous US intelligence official. “The new guy is even more corrupt,” Hersh quoted a “knowledgeable US intelligence official” as saying. “He ran the sale of government property and made a fortune. Has a huge villa in Majorca.” The source claimed that Umerov’s name was not on a list of 35 corrupt officials allegedly presented to Zelensky by CIA Director William Burns in January 2023. “The list was not a telephone book of crooks; just the ones receiving US military and economic financing,” Hersh’s source said.

In August 2021, by decree of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, Rustam Umerov was awarded the Order of Merit, III degree "For a significant personal contribution to state building, strengthening of defense capability, socio-economic, scientific, technical, cultural and educational development of the Ukrainian state, significant labor achievements, many years of conscientious work and on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Independence of Ukraine".

Rustem Umerov is married, his wife's name is Leyla Seit-Yagya Kyzy. Together they raise two children - son Seyid Ahmed and daughter Meryem [other sources report three children]. Umerov professes Islam.