Kyiv: Muslims mostly originally from eastern and southern areas of the country gathered one Friday in late February, braving blistering winds outside, to pray together in a mosque atop a hill in the Ukrainian capital.
Other Muslims from beyond the country’s borders, meanwhile, were braving much harsher conditions on fronts hundreds of kilometres further east, where brutal battles are raging over small towns that have more of a symbolic than strategic battle but are nonetheless part of the “every square kilometer” many Ukrainians have vowed to defend.
Mosque in Kyiv, Ukraine. Feb. 24, 2023
Following the communal prayer in the Kyiv mosque, about a dozen men stayed afterwards, some to study Quran interpretation and recitation on the plush warm red-carpeted floor, incense burning and large Qurans in front of them.
In September 2022, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky — who is Jewish — drew some surprise abroad when he appeared in the video next to a Kyiv plaque memorialising a 19th century Muslim cleric who led resistance against Imperial Russia in the Caucasus.
Addressing the "peoples of the Caucasus, Siberia and other indigenous peoples of Russia," Zelenskyy stated: “Now I am in that part of Kyiv, where Imam Shamil, the hero of Dagestan and the entire Caucasus, lived in the 1860s. As you can see, Ukraine knows how to honor your heroes.”
Now I am in that part of Kyiv, where Imam Shamil, the hero of Dagestan and the entire Caucasus, lived in the 1860s. As you can see, Ukraine knows how to honor your heroes.
Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy
"In order for Russian citizens to go to war, they are artificially driven into poverty, and into loans. People are intimidated by repression, harassed by propaganda. You can change this", he added.
Significant Muslim presence
Islam has for centuries been an integral part of this land, as those living here are well aware. Of the 15 former Soviet republics, six had Muslim-majority populations.
Relations between Ukraine and several Muslim-majority nations seem to have become closer since the Russian large-scale attack on several parts of Ukraine starting on Feb. 24 last year, marking a major escalation in a conflict underway since 2014.
Late into the night on Feb. 26, air alerts warned those in Kyiv including Al Majalla's correspondent to go to a shelter immediately.
Building in a Kyiv outskirt destroyed by the Russian invasion. Feb. 24, 2023.
Ukraine's military on Feb. 27 said it had shot down 11 out of 14 Iranian-made Shahed drones late Sunday and early Monday, including all nine aimed at Kyiv.
Muslim fighters both from the country itself and from the wider region — including from Chechnya and other countries in the Caucasus — have played a key role in the fight against Russia since the conflict began in 2014.
Though there are no reliable statistics available, multiple members of the Muslim community Al Majalla spoke to in late February said that there are an estimated between one and two million Muslims out of an estimated 2021 population of Ukraine of over 43 million.
Though there are no reliable statistics available, multiple members of the Muslim community Al Majalla spoke to in late February said that there are an estimated between one and two million Muslims out of an estimated 2021 population of Ukraine of over 43 million.
An estimated at least 20 million Muslims live in Russia out of a total population of over 140 million. The Grand Mufti of Russia in 2018 claimed there were at least 25 million Muslims in Russia and many have commented on significant growth of the Muslim population, with birth rates higher among them than among other communities.
Some of these "Russian" Muslims are now in Ukraine, fighting Russia. One of the most spectacular videos to come out of Ukraine last year of frontline fighting, for example, featured the Chechen Sheikh Mansour Brigade.
The walls surrounding the Kyiv hilltop mosque provided brief respite from the freezing cold on Al Majalla's visit on Feb. 24, while glimpses of the Dnipro river running through the city could be seen between buildings flanking streets descending towards the lower districts of the city.
The river rises near Smolensk in Russia and flows through Belarus before crossing Ukraine to the Black Sea, where Ukraine's port cities and shores are opposite Turkey.
One man praying at the mosque said he was from areas of the Kherson region further southeast but had managed to flee in the early days of the Russian occupation of his city last year.
Mosque in Kyiv.
He added that he had later also managed to get his immediate family out but that it had been extremely complicated to do so.
Another man said his family was originally from Donetsk, also in the eastern part of the country and where the toughest battles are currently underway.
The Soviet Union deported hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars in May 1944 to other areas, mostly Uzbekistan. They were only allowed to return decades later. Thousands died during and after the deportation due to the harsh conditions suffered. The mass deportation has been formally recognised as genocide by Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Canada.
The Soviet Union deported hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars in May 1944 to other areas, mostly Uzbekistan. They were only allowed to return decades later. Thousands died during and after the deportation due to the harsh conditions suffered. The mass deportation has been formally recognised as genocide by Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Canada.
The commander of Ukraine's Crimea battalion, Nariman Bilialov, spoke to Al Majalla in Kyiv in late February via videocall from a location he asked not to disclose for security reasons.
He was last year awarded the country's Order of Merit by President Zelenskyy.
Bilialov, who is also known as Isa Akaiev, told Al Majalla that he believes the award was recognition of the fighting prowess and bravery he and his men had shown in 2014 when they managed to capture an important village and hold it despite numerous difficulties.
He said that in addition to Muslim Ukrainians taking part in the battles on the eastern front now as part of the regular Ukrainian forces and his own battalion, there are also three other Muslim brigades that include non-Ukrainian fighters.
Graffiti on wall near mosque in Kyiv, Ukraine.Feb. 24, 2023.
Bilialov told Al Majalla that, "it is the state's obligation to maintain territorial integrity", and thus Ukraine must take all of its land back including Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
As a Crimean Tatar, however, he said he wanted to stress that, "Russia not only oppresses Muslims, it also oppresses its own citizens and anyone under the country's control. It takes their manhood, humanity, dignity, and language."
Russia not only oppresses Muslims, it also oppresses its own citizens and anyone under the country's control. It takes their manhood, humanity, dignity, and language.
Nariman Bilialov, Commander of Ukraine's Crimea battalion
"Russia also confiscated my home," in Crimea, he noted, after a law was passed stating that Crimean natives who fled the area after Russia annexed it no longer own the property they had on the peninsula.
Bilialov, 57 years old, had not lived in Crimea until the 1990s. He had been born in Uzbekistan after the 1944 mass deportation of local Crimean Tatars including his family. In the 1980s he did his military service in the Soviet Union but was in the engineering unit, he said, and had had no prior experience in battle before 2014.
"But one of the best Ukrainian fighters told me then [in 2014] that I am a natural-born fighter," he said in the videocall to Al Majalla, grinning under his salt-and-pepper beard and wearing a t-shirt extolling Ukraine, his arm in a cast.
Bilialov stressed that, "in Ukraine there is freedom of religion but there is no such thing in Russia".
Another Crimean Muslim Al Majalla spoke to in Kyiv in late February said that it is common for Muslims in Russia to be arrested for possession of books considered "extremist materials", including at times even Arabic-language copies of the Quran.
According to a 2022 report on Russia by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, "In 2021, as in past years, peaceful Muslims comprised the majority of political prisoners persecuted in connection with the realisation of their right to freedom of religion (…) Crimean Tatar Muslims opposed to the Russian occupation of their Ukrainian homeland continued to receive lengthy prison sentences for unsubstantiated charges of terrorism based on their Muslim identity."
Bilialov said he knew multiple Muslims from Dagestan who had been with the Russian forces but later switched sides to fight on Ukraine's side.
"If Muslims from other areas helped us, it will be our obligation to help them," he added in response to a question about whether he would be willing to send his fighters to other countries and/or to help Muslim populations fighting for their rights in Russia and elsewhere - if and when all Ukrainian territory is regained.
"Of course, the armed forces of Ukraine might not be officially involved in such conflicts. However, in that case any Muslims now fighting on the side of Ukraine can retire and join such battles as volunteers," he said.
Mosque and make-shift shelter
One of the Quranic studies teachers in the mosque in central Kyiv, named Ismail, told Al Majalla that when Russia starting its massive invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2023, at least 450 people sought shelter in this mosque, "both Muslims and those of other religions".
Inside a mosque in Kyiv, Ukraine. Feb. 24, 2023.
He said that he remembers families from both the town of Bucha — close to Kyiv and where mass graves and atrocities committed were discovered after the Russians were pushed out — and the Donetsk region in the far east of the country, who had come to the mosque and stayed for weeks prior to "going farther westward".
Ismail said that the mosque and those affiliated with it "do not tell those who come to pray whether to volunteer to fight or not. It is their personal choice. They might have families [they need to take care of] or other personal circumstances".
But many, here, are eligible to be called up for military service at any time. And some have fled areas now under Russian occupation to avoid being called up on that side.
In outlying residential area of the capital, where one of the taller buildings stands burnt and destroyed, attesting to the violence even Kyiv has suffered, Muslims pray in a hall inside an unmarked building with a security system.
Nearby, also accessible only through an external gate with a surveillance system and no markings seen from the street, is a "resistance centre" with a generator, coffee and tea and pamphlets.
Inside the building is also a separate area for women to pray, a staircase leading up to an adjacent educational center for children, with English verbs and their conjugations painted in bright, cheerful colors on the steps.
One Crimean Tatar at this mosque told Al Majalla during a visit in late February that he had brought his family here to Kyiv last autumn since otherwise he would have been forced to fight for Russia but that he was, at any time, fully ready to fight for Ukraine.
