The mission of the Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security Council does not seem easy. He sits at the head of a Ukrainian delegation to negotiate the Russian side on the conditions for stopping the fighting, and he is well aware that he may be forced at a certain stage of discussions to make painful concessions. Not only in the political sense, but on a direct personal level. Whoever expected only a few years ago that the activist and solid defender on the rights of Crimea, which has become one of the most prominent “hawks” in the Ukrainian politics kitchen, and played very important roles in the face of the Kremlin policies, will one day lead the most difficult battle in his life, and to negotiate the conditions for closing the file of the inclusion of the peninsula to Russia, and accepting the new reality?
This may be the last Battle of Rustam Omar He is fighting it as a representative of all Ukraine, which is placed on the negotiating table, inside the luxurious presidential palace hall in Istanbul, 20 percent of its territory, and a large part of its sovereignty and national future. It also carries at the same time, with its negotiating papers, a full history of major political and social fluctuations in the Crimean Tatars; The indigenous population on the peninsula, which has turned its fate for many years to a negotiating file.
Amrov’s life stations
Many things occupied an essential space from the life of Omarov’s life, whose childhood lived with his family the policy of forced displacement of the Tatars of Crimea in 1944, and he grew up in his youth on the feelings of fear of the Kremlin’s expansionist ambitions in the neighboring country. Amrouf spent the greatest part of his life, fighting the Russian presence in Crimea, adhering to the policy of “ending the effects of aggression”, and returning the peninsula to Ukrainian sovereignty, with the return of representatives of Crimea Tatars; The indigenous population of the region, to self -determination. And here he is negotiating a deal to end the fighting in exchange for waiving lands.
Amrov was born in the historic city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan. His parents arrived in the framework of the forced displacement journey with armored trains, where the greatest part of Crimea was transferred to the Central Asian republics after the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin accused them of “conspiring with the armies of Hitler.” It is the same charge, which was the reason for the displacement of a large part of the Chechen people also from their lands in that era. However, in the early nineties of the last century, Amrouf returned to the Crimea as a child, when developments allowed the return of the indigenous people to their areas. His family’s historical status in the town of Al -Washta, and because it was the affordable family, was credited with the fact that he graduated from the inner school of Crimea for talented children, and this school was part of the educational network of the Turkish preacher Fathallah Gulen.
After his graduation, he completed training in the United States as part of the future leaders exchange program implemented by the US State Department, and then after his return to Ukraine, he graduated in the Department of Economics at the National Academy of Administration, and specialized in financing and credit.
Early political activity
Rustam Amrouf began his career in the field of communications, and turned into a prominent businessman in this sector. But his primary concern emerged in his early political activity, and was among the founders of the “Crimean Tatars Community” organization that focused on developing regional representations of the Tatars of Crimea in Ukraine.
In 2007, he also became one of the founders of the Youth Organization for the Crimean Tatars Council, “Bizem Kerim”. Between 2011 and 2013, he was one of the founders and head of the Crimea Development Fund, which in particular participated in organizing international meetings of the council leader, Mustafa Jamilif, the most prominent figure who faced Russian incursion and the annexation decisions later.
Indeed, the name of Rustam Omarouf has emerged quickly as a leader of the Crimean Tatar community, and later tomorrow as a deputy in the Ukrainian parliament for the Golos (Voice) party. Since 2014, Amruf has played prominent roles, and he was the Secretary of the Political Prisoners Exchange Council from the Crimea.
In Parliament, he became the Secretary of the Ukrainian Parliament for Human Rights, “ending the occupation and reusing the occupied territories temporarily into the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, the Crimean Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, national minorities and relations between races.” He was also a member of the permanent delegation to the Council of Europe.
In July 2022, the temporary special committee in Parliament concerned with monitoring the receipt and use of material and international technology aid during martial law. Before that, in 2020, he joined the working group of the National Security Council and Defense in Ukraine to develop a “strategy to end the occupation of the Crimea.” In December of the same year, he contributed to the launch of the “Crimean platform” initiative, which provided an international umbrella to remind and exert pressure to end the Russian presence in the region.
His role in war
During the Russian -Ukrainian war, Amrov played an important role in sensitive stations; He was among the Ukrainian delegation in several stages of negotiations with the Russian Federation. He participated in negotiations to exchange prisoners, then participated in Istanbul’s negotiations in 2022 to approve the grain deal. At that stage, he was almost subjected to an assassination attempt by poison, according to Ukrainian sources, stating that Amrouf appeared signs of an unknown substance after a meeting with a businessman close to the Kremlin.
He held the first senior government position in the summer of 2022 when he was appointed head of the State Property Fund in Ukraine, and succeeded in this task in fighting corruption, and was considered by few politicians in Ukraine whose names were not associated with corruption files.
In 2023, the Ukrainian leadership was accompanied on work trips to several countries, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and its existence was important; As it represents the Crimean Tatars. At that time, Ukrainian newspapers wrote that Rustam Omarov has good relations in the region, especially with Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
In Riyadh, in particular, Amruf held the first difficult negotiating tour in March 2025 with the American envoys. Although there were not many details about the content of the tour’s discussions, Amruf expressed relief to the “fruitful debate” about ending the war; He said on social networks: “We concluded our meeting with the American team. The debate was fruitful and focused, and we influenced major points, including energy, adding that Ukraine is working to make its goal of “fair and sustainable peace, real.” But behind his optimistic phrases, there was a bitter feeling of disappointment; As this was his first difficult task in researching a painful settlement, then he will have to acknowledge that the waiver of the Crimea will be a price for the promised peace.
This came after two years of the appointment of Amrouf as Minister of Defense, to become the first Muslim minister in Ukraine, and the first minister of Crimea’s Tatars in this country. His appointment was a political message on the part of Kiev that he did not give up Crimea and its ownership of its residents of the Tatars in any future negotiations. But the wishes that the decision to appoint him may not find an application on the ground; As he later went on to Istanbul’s negotiations with the Russian side, whose most prominent negotiating conditions were to acknowledge the sovereignty of Moscow, not only on the peninsula, but on four provinces that Moscow included in its lands unilaterally in 2023: Donetsk, Lugansk, Khairsson and Zaburujia.
A few days ago, Amrouf returned to the negotiating table as head of his country’s delegation in a third round, not as Minister of Defense this time, but as the first president of the National Security Council in Ukraine from Crimea Tatars.
