The Crimean “underground” movement announces that its membership now reaches thousands. Atesh includes Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, but it claims to have also attracted Russian soldiers to its side.
Russian occupying the Crimean peninsula in September 2022, a military partisan movement called Ateš began its activities.
Ateš means fire or fire (Ateş) in Kriminattar.
The movement includes Crimean Tatars as well as Ukrainians, and it claims to have also recruited Russian soldiers. Ateš has announced that the number of members is in the “thousands”.
The movement is pushing for the liberation of Crimea from the Russian yoke. It seeks to achieve its goals by spying on Russian forces and targeting them with direct sabotage.
“Not all Crimeans are zombies,” states a man who belongs to Ateš in a recent article In an interview with the BBC.
“They are capable of resistance even in the face of total censorship.”
Russia began occupying the Crimean peninsula in February 2014. In March of the same year, it declared Crimea a part of the Russian Federation.
A staged “referendum” was organized in Crimea on accession. In it, 96.77 percent of voters allegedly supported the annexation of the Crimean peninsula to Russia.
By talking about “zombies”, the member of Ateš is referring to Crimeans bent on Russian occupation. However, especially in the Crimean Tatar community, the attitude towards the Russian occupation has been negative.
The BBC is calling A member of Ateš, who remains anonymous, is called “Agent yksi” in his story. The name is descriptive, because Ateš's activities have features that refer to secret intelligence activities.
For example, the BBC tells in its story how Agent One takes photos and gathers information about the movements of Russian forces in Crimea.
Ateš claims to have followed Russian forces in other areas of Ukraine and even inside Russia. In February last year, it claimed to have attracted more than 4,000 Russian soldiers for the online course he organizedwith which they were trained to destroy their own equipment.
Conscripts recruited into the Russian army in Simferopol, Crimea, last May.
The partisan movement operates on dangerous ground, downright life-threatening. In the Russian media, Ateshia has been characterized as a terrorist organization banned by the Kremlin.
Russian war bloggers have a slightly different view of the movement. In their opinion, it is just an invention concocted by the Ukrainian intelligence service.
Another one too British media The Guardian is written about Ateš. In July of last year, the magazine interviewed the long-term leader of the Crimean Tatars Mustafa Cemilev about the operation of the shop.
“Ateš is very deep underground,” he said and claimed that no member of the movement has been arrested by the Russians so far.
The Ukrainian media has also painted a rather daring and successful picture of Ateš's activities. Last December, a Ukrainian newspaper The New Voice of Ukraine claimed that the partisan movement had succeeded in exposing the secret headquarters of the Russian military in Crimea.
According to The Guardian, Ateš has claimed that he succeeded, among other things, in blowing up border crossings and checkpoints set up by Russia and in assassinating Russian officials. In addition, Ateš actively forwards the intelligence he collects to Ukraine.
The BBC is also interviewed four other Ateš members for his story.
The man named “Agent Five” claims in the story that he is a double agent – he is a member of the partisan movement but also works in the Russian army.
“The risks are big,” he admits. “Nobody wants to go to jail. In this kind of work, mistakes are simply not allowed.”
The BBC says that it got direct contact with the five Ateš members it interviewed. However, they did not agree to reveal their identities. According to the BBC, a source working in Ukraine's defense and intelligence services has found the men's accounts credible.
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