MOSCOW, March 18 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine’s breakaway region of Crimea will ask Tatars to vacate part of the land where they now live in exchange for new territory elsewhere in the region, a top Crimean government official said Tuesday.

Crimean Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliyev said in an interview with RIA Novosti on Tuesday the new government in Crimea, where residents voted Sunday to become part of Russia, wants to regularize the land unofficially taken over by Crimean Tatar squatters following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“We have asked the Crimean Tatars to vacate part of their land, which is required for social needs,” Temirgaliyev said. “But we are ready to allocate and legalize many other plots of land to ensure a normal life for the Crimean Tatars,” he said.

More here: Crimean Tatars Will Have to Vacate Land — Official

Needless to say, this should raise some eyebrows. The Tatars were already kicked out of Crimea once by Stalin in 1944, and only able to return starting in the 1990s. I’d understand if they were leery of more pro-Russian calls for mass relocation, even if it comes with supposed palliatives like “somewhere else to live” and “positions in the government.”

Of course no GULAGs and genocidal famine so far, so that’s something. #marchofprogress

— John Schindler (@20committee) March 19, 2014