Ukraine’s new defense minister, Rustem Umerov, has explained why he is so focused on winning the war against Russia, saying Moscow occupied his homeland, Crimea, centuries ago, Sky News reports.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, he said: “For me, this war did not start in 2022 or even in 2014. For my family and the Crimean Tatar people, the war with Russia began several centuries ago, when Moscow first occupied my native Crimea.”

“I was born after my family was deported, and as a child I experienced hardships caused by Russian colonialism, which tried to make the native Crimean Tatars feel like foreigners in their own land,” says a Ukrainian official.

Umerov warns the Russians that they failed then and “will never pass, and our main goal today is to win the war.”