Rustem Umerov

His family, Crimean Tatar Muslims originating from Alushta in the Crimean peninsula, an oblast of the Russian SFSR at the time, was deported on 18 May 1944 to the Uzbek SSR.

After 50 years of exile and the beginning of Crimean Tatar repatriation during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Umerov family returned to their homeland in Crimea, now part of the Ukrainian SSR, in 1989.

While attending high school, Umerov participated in the Future Leaders Exchange program funded by the U.S. Department of State.

As an exchange student, he lived in a host family and attended an American school for one academic year.

Umerov received a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's degree in finance from the National Academy of Management.

Rustem Enverovych Umerov (Рустем Енверович Умєров, Rüstem Enver oğlu Ümerov; born 19 April 1982) is a Ukrainian politician, businessman, investor, philanthropist and the current Defence Minister of Ukraine.

Umerov is a Muslim, and of Crimean Tatar origin.

Umerov is a former deputy head of the permanent delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, a delegate of the Qurultay of the Crimean Tatar People, and an adviser to former Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People chair Mustafa Dzhemilev.

Umerov was born in 1982 in Bulungʻur, Samarkand, in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic.

His father, Enver Umerov, was an engineering technologist; his mother, Meryem Umerova, was a chemical engineer.

In 2013, with his brother Aslan Ömer Qırımlı, Umerov founded the investment company ASTEM and its ASTEM Foundation.

ASTEM manages investments in the fields of telecommunication, information technology, and infrastructure, mainly communication towers and fiber-optic networks.

The foundation funded Stanford University's Ukrainian Emerging Leaders program.

In 2015, the Verkhovna Rada recognized this move as genocide.

Since 2019, Umerov has been a People's Deputy of Ukraine from the Holos political party.

In September 2022, the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) appointed him as the head of State Property Fund of Ukraine.

Umerov is the President's Advisory Council Commissioner for Ukraine's Interaction with Arab and Muslim States.

Following the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Umerov joined Ukraine's negotiation team with Russia in February 2022.

On 3 September 2023, Umerov was nominated by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to replace Oleksii Reznikov as the Minister of Defence of Ukraine.

Umerov was confirmed as the new Minister of Defense by the Verkhovna Rada on 6 September.

The day before the Verkhovna Rada had formally accepted his resignation as the head of the State Property Fund.

In the July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Umerov was elected a People's Deputy of Ukraine from the Holos party.

He has co-authored almost 100 bills, drafted a statement by the Verkhovna Rada on the illegitimacy of Russia's vote on amendments to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and introduced a bill on the abolition of the Crimean free economic zone.

Umerov helped spearhead the construction of 1,000 apartments for internally-displaced Crimean Tatars and other Ukrainian citizens with Turkish support.

In early April 2021, Zelenskyy and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan agreed to begin building the apartments.

Ukrainian Minister of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Oleksii Reznikov and Turkish Minister of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change Murat Kurum signed an agreement in which Turkey would build 500 apartments: 200 in Mykolaiv, 200 in Kherson, and 100 in Kyiv.

Since December 2020, Umerov has also co-chaired the Crimea Platform diplomatic initiative.

In September 2023, amidst the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy named Umerov to replace Oleksii Reznikov as defense minister of Ukraine.

In May 2020, he co-authored a bill on the payment of hospital bills to physicians because of COVID-19, regardless of length of service and at 100 percent of the average salary.

In September 2020, Umerov and other deputies initiated a resolution on the redistribution of money from the Fund to Fight COVID-19 to ensure safe education during quarantine.

He co-authored a bill establishing a procedure for recognizing stateless persons.

The law, allowing such persons to legally remain in Ukraine and obtain a document certifying their identity and status, took effect on 18 July 2020.

Umerov collaborated on a bill exempting internally-displaced persons from tourist tax for living in temporary accommodations that was signed into law on 12 October 2020.

In April 2021, Umerov stated that Ukraine would not supply water through the North Crimean Canal to Crimea while Russian occupation continued.

Umerov said that because Russia has violated international law, it is responsible for the humanitarian needs of the Crimean people.

Umerov was deputy head of the permanent delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

He co-chaired the groups for inter-parliamentary relations with Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

In May 2020, he appealed to the UN, the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the OSCE, NATO, and the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation to honor victims of the Crimean Tatar genocide and condemn Russia's violations of their rights and freedoms.

In January 2021, as part of a delegation to the PACE winter session, Umerov raised the issue of violation of the rights of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars in Crimea by the Russian occupiers.

Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, due to their ethnic affiliation and Ukrainian position, are subject to inspection by the occupation administration, which results in repression and illegal imprisonment.