President Zelensky's announcement of Rustam Umerov as a candidate for the post of Minister of Defense of Ukraine became top news not only in Ukrainian but also in Turkish media.

After all, the current head of the State Property Fund - a man who at first glance is far from the war - participated in negotiations on the exchange of prisoners of war with the participation of Turkish President Recep Erdogan and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman.

So the Turkish media also got involved in discussing the biography of the likely head of the Ukrainian defense ministry.

Anadolu (government information agency) names Umerov as the commissioner of the advisory council to the president on interaction with Arab and Muslim countries.

Hürriyet (the most popular publication in Turkey and close to the authorities) calls Rustem Umerov a key figure in President Zelensky's team of negotiators in the first months of the war and during the conclusion of the agreements on the grain corridor.

Sabah (a powerful media group belonging to Erdogan's relatives) emphasizes Umerov's Crimean Tatar origin.

The opposition publication Sozcu (one of the three most popular media along with Hürriyet and Sabah) repeats word for word the same information found in pro-government publications, and calls Umerov the first Crimean Tatar to head the ministry.

Other publications included in the top ten Turkish media resources focused on lesser-known (and very dubious) aspects of Rustem Umerov's biography.

The Left-Republican Jumhuriyet and the nationalist “Yeni Chag” (the latter is associated with the leader of the Good Party Meral Akshener) focus on the education of Rustem Umerov in the Crimean lyceum for gifted children in 1993-1999. They call this lyceum part of the educational network of the Pennsylvania preacher Fethullah Gulen, who in Turkey since 2016 has been considered the organizer of the attempted military coup. Both publications recall Rustem Umerov's participation in the Future Change Leaders (FLEX) program under the auspices of the US Department of State.

Dzhumhuriyet emphasizes the role of Umerov in the dismissal of the leaders of “Azov”, which he calls a neo-Nazi group.

Left-wing publications such as Aydinlik and Evrensel, which often broadcast Kremlin narratives, mention Rustem's older brother, Ruslan Umerov (Arslan Omer Kirimla), who has lived in the United States since 2016, without any evidence linking both brothers to Gulen activists and also claim without evidence that in Kiev the Umerovs are called “American boys”.

The opposition left-wing resource ODATV went even further. Repeating claims about Umerov's ties to the Gülen movement, the publication reports that last year it sent the following questions to the Ukrainian politician:

- In the Turkish media there is news that you belong to the terrorist group Fethullah Gulen. Is it so?

- Did you study at a boarding school belonging to the Gulenists?

- Do you meet with Gulenist fugitives in Ukraine?

- Do you recognize the Gülen movement as a terrorist organization?

According to the journalists of the publication, they never received answers to their questions from Umerov.

An important aspect, all Turkish publications - both government and opposition - call the fact that Umerov has been an assistant to the leader of the Crimean Tatar people, Mustafa Dzhemilev for many years.