What should Ukraine's Defense Minister look like?

I do not know Mr. Umierov personally. I don't know Mr. Reznikov either. But what is definitely not okay is the consistent emphasis in the posts of many who support the candidacy of the new minister that he is a Crimean Tatar and that this supposedly means something in the context of the appointment.

It means nothing. It cannot mean anything in principle. He is not a Crimean Tatar in his position, but a Ukrainian. Because there is no other identity for the Defense Minister during the war. Of course, he can have an ethnicity separate from Ukrainians, be a husband, father, son, godfather, member of a religious community, or something else. But again, none of this matters.

Because he is a member of the government, the head of the Ministry of Defense of a warring Ukraine, and this is the main thing. And one more thing - if something goes wrong with him, which we would not want, the negative will automatically be transferred to all members of the group (Crimeans, in this case).

There are already comments that there are "disproportionately many" Crimean Tatars in the government and that there are "few" in the army. There will only be more of this in the future. Because xenophobia is a very precise weapon and it works flawlessly. That is why the person in this position must be a citizen of Ukraine, a professional manager and not corrupt. Everything else is secondary.

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About the author: Vakhtang Kipiani, Ukrainian journalist, historian, military officer with the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

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