By Paul Goble
The Crimean Tatar underground organization, Atesh – “spark” in that national language -- is playing an increasingly important role in providing intelligence to Kyiv about Russian aggression and carrying out sabotage against Russian targets not only in Crimea but inside the Russian Federation as well. Because of the nature of its work, most of the actions Atesh has claimed or been blamed for cannot be independently corroborated and thus are often dismissed either as self-promotion in the first case or disinformation in the second.
As it enters the fifth year of its existence, Atesh and its role are becoming clearer, especially in the wake of Ukrainian attacks on targets within the Russian Federation. These developments justify the conclusion that this Crimean Tatar underground organization is a serious ally of Kyiv, and suggest that no discussion of Ukraine’s order of battle or its ability to inflict harm on Russian targets should take place without reference to Atesh and its actions.
After Putin seized Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, more than 50,000 Crimean Tatars fled their homeland but others formed a series of small underground groups inside Russian occupied Crimea to harass Russian forces there. They had some success in the following years but did not come together to form a unified command until after Putin launched his expanded war against Ukraine in February 2022. Then, in the fall of that year, many in these groups united and formed Atesh both to continue their campaign inside the Crimean homeland and to assist Ukrainian forces elsewhere, something they viewed as central to the achievement of their own goals.
The group’s actions in 2022 through 2023 attracted relatively little attention because they were concentrated in Crimea and seldom could be independently confirmed; but by the start of 2024, its attacks had increased to the point that they attracted more attention, a trend that intensified as the group provided intelligence to Kyiv that allowed Ukrainian forces to sink Russian ships on the Black Sea and attack Russian positions in Ukraine itself. (For more information on the organization in that period, see CEPA. Feb 8, 2024 and the files for those years of Atesh’s own telegram channel, ATESH UA, one that now has almost 50,000 subscribers.)
Operations Inside Crimea
Over the last year and especially this summer as Kyiv has pounded Russian targets with drone attacks, however, far more information about Atesh has come out about its role acting in support of what the Ukrainian military is doing inside Crimea and also inside Russia, such as in Kursk both by its own attacks and by providing intelligence that a fuller picture of Atesh has emerged.
Among the most important features of this picture, some but not all of which have been picked up by Western outlets media outlets, are the following:
· First, Atesh operates on the basis of its leaders’ understanding that in the current war, there is no chance that Ukraine will disappear but there is a very real risk that Russia could succeed in destroying the Crimean Tatars in their homeland, a possibility that compels the Crimean Tatars to form their own organization of self-defense.
· Second, the group has succeeded in attracting what its leaders claim are 1800 to 2,000 members, although it acknowledges that only a fraction of these is actively engaged in sabotage or intelligence operations. Most, its leaders say, actively support the goals of Atesh but aren’t taking actions that could bring Russian retribution.
· Third, Atesh has always identified itself as a Crimean Tatar operation; but it includes within its membership and supporters may ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians opposed to Putin’s aggressive war in Ukraine. That multi-national composition gives it advantages it would not have had if it had remained purely Crimean Tatar.
· Fourth, as the war has evolved, Atesh has assumed an ever-larger role as a source of intelligence about Russian positions that Kyiv can use for targeting and about Russian plans in Crimea and the Black Sea where Crimean Tatars have the ability to gather information.
· And fifth, as Moscow has stepped up repression in Crimea and forced other groups which have spoken out for the Crimean Tatars to disband, Atesh is thus likely to assume an ever more important role as far as the future of the Crimean Tatars are concerned.
Outlook
Like other Crimean Tatar organizations, Atesh seeks international recognition that the 1944 Soviet deportation of Crimean Tatars was an act of genocide—a step over the last decade that seven countries have done. Furthermore, Atesh shares the commitment of other Crimean Tatar leaders and groups and is committed to the expulsion of Russian forces from Ukraine and ensuring Crimea remains within the restored borders of the Ukrainian republic.
Atesh’s contribution to the Ukrainian cause now almost certainly in the future will give the Crimean Tatars a greater voice in what the role of Crimean Tatars within Ukraine will be, something that along with its current military contribution makes it a group to watch rather than to dismiss out of hand as something marginal.
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