Separatist Leader With Murky Past Cements Control of Crimea

Crimean separatist leader Sergei Aksyonov, rumored to have been a low-level gangster before his sudden political rise, has been elected head of the Russian-annexed republic in a unanimous parliamentary vote. In addition to his five-year term as head, he will also continue to serve as the prime minister of Crimea, putting him in charge of the peninsula's two top executive posts.

Deputies greeted the results of the vote Thursday with a standing ovation and an immediate swearing-in ceremony conducted by an honor guard in spotless white uniforms. But critical observers and journalists have questioned Aksyonov's murky past and alleged repression of Crimean Tatars since unmarked Russian troops seized the peninsula and brought him to power at the end of February.

All 75 deputies of the Crimean parliament supported Aksyonov, 41, over the two other candidates named by Russian president Vladimir Putin in a vote that brought few surprises. In a slightly surreal government meeting at the end of September, speaker of the Crimean parliament Vladimir Konstantinov announced that the ruling party had made its decision and Aksyonov would be elected head of the republic October 9, drawing a chuckle from Aksyonov and hesitant laughter and applause from other politicians present.

Following elections last month, the ruling United Russia party won 70 seats in the Crimean parliament, while the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), known as a toothless opposition party during its two decades in the Russian parliament, took the other five.

Tatar Nation: The Other Crimea. Watch the VICE NEWS documentary here.

The true nature of Aksyonov's rise from obscurity has been a matter of speculation. Born in the Soviet republic of Moldova in 1972, Aksyonov attended a university in Simferopol and then held assistant director positions in several food distribution firms. In the late 2000s, he joined several pro-Russian civic organizations. In 2010, he became a deputy in the Crimean parliament for the Russian Unity party, which narrowly passed the threshold for entrance with 4 percent of the vote. He said in an interview around that time that he made a good living renting real estate through firms registered in his wife's name.

But pro-Ukrainian residents told VICE News that he was also known as a minor gangster who ran protection rackets at marketplaces in the capital of Simferopol, earning the nickname "Goblin." The only published evidence of Aksyonov's criminal activities, however, was an alleged "guilty sentence" for fraud on the website of a local self-declared "human rights activist" who himself has been accused of being a fraudster.

In 2009, Mikhail Bakharev, first deputy chairman of the Russian Community in Crimea, announced that he was stopping his work with the organization until it could be "cleaned of criminal elements," singling out fellow pro-Russian activist Aksyonov. Bakharev read aloud what he said was a line from police investigation documents that identified Aksyonov as a member of Salem, a well-known Crimean organized crime group that was involved in a number of gang wars there in the 1990s. According to Bakharev, Aksyonov had also led his own "brigade," as the many small criminal groups in Russia and Ukraine at that time were known, and was once hospitalized after a gunfight.

Aksyonov sued Bakharev for slander, winning his case in a district court, which then ordered Bakharev to publicly apologize. But this decision was later overturned in the Crimean Appeals Court, according to local media reports. "In this way, the information that I put out in the media was not false, since Aksyonov couldn't prove the opposite in court," Bakharev said at the time.

Crimea: Welcome to Russia. Watch the VICE News documentary here.

Spokeswoman Yekaterina Polonchuk told VICE News that Aksyonov proved the information baseless in the district court, but said she didn't know the outcome of the appeals court case off the top of her head.

"In the '90s Aksyonov was a rank-and-file 'brigadier' and was running rackets," Ilmi Umerov, a Crimean Tatar, former Crimean parliamentary deputy and head of the administration of the Bakhchisarai region, told the Russian magazine Sobesednik. "At a certain point he traded his tracksuit for a suit coat, and, like many of his colleagues, decided to legalize himself in politics. At the same time, he always had and still retains good relations with different circles of power and security and business structures."

Aksyonov has previously said he was never convicted of any crime and called allegations of a criminal past "empty rumors" in a taped interview.

"I think the previous Crimean leadership, against which we actively fought for two years, tried to create a certain image for me, but despite all their efforts they didn't meet with success," he said.

Sergei Kostinsky, a Crimean political analyst who is pro-Ukrainian, said Aksyonov had minimal popular support and likely would not have been re-elected to parliament if not for the annexation of the peninsula.

Crimea's separation from Ukraine was reportedly prepared with the help of Kremlin-connected political consultants such as Alexander Borodai and Igor Strelkov, who would later go on to head the separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine. In an indication of the Russian involvement before the seizure of the peninsula, in February, Russian MP Alexei Zhuravlyov arrived in Simferopol and, alongside Aksyonov, announced the start of the Slavic Antifascist Front and worked to facilitate the entry of Ukraine into Russia's Customs Union.

Aksyonov was soon installed as the head of the separatist republic because of his loyalty to Moscow and his large debts, which made him dependent on the Kremlin's patronage, Kostinsky said. During a recent lawsuit brought by a former business partner, Aksyonov admitted to owing at least $3.85 million.

"If the rest of the Crimean political elite doubted, and it was hard to get them to come to legislative sessions, Aksyonov demonstrated a clear pro-Kremlin position and for this reason they made him the head," Kostinsky said.

Crimea: March of the Tatars. Watch the VICE News documentary here.

Aksyonov's time in power has been marked by a crackdown on Crimean Tatars. Unmarked troops and local self-defense forces answer to Aksyonov alone, said Crimean Tatar activist and journalist Nadji Femi. The Muslim ethnic minority comprises roughly 12 percent of the peninsula's population, and, for the most part, opposed the movement to join Russia.

A local court evicted the Crimean Tatar parliament from its building last month, citing "violations of rent contract payments." In the last two weeks, five young Tatar men have also disappeared. One was later found hanged in a suicide that his family and friends believe was staged.

Although Aksyonov has said the Tatars are not being discriminated against, Femi said the minority group no longer trusts the government.

"When they forbid our meetings, search our homes for weapons and banned literature and exile our leaders, they give us reason not to believe the authorities," she said. "Right now, Crimean Tatars are being intimidated so that most active of them leave and the rest stay quiet just to avoid punishment."

Follow Alec Luhn on Twitter: @ASLuhn