Dhaka, March 18 -- When Russia illegally annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea in 2014, tens of thousands of people fled the southern peninsula. Some of these exiles joined Ukraine's armed forces in the fight against Russia, including Isa Akayev and Iryna Holosna.

Akayev, whose real name is Nariman Bilyalov, is the commander of Ukraine's Crimea battalion, which he founded together with other Crimeans. The small unit is dominated by Crimean Tatars, the Muslim Turkic group indigenous to the region. Today, the battalion forms a special unit within Ukraine's military intelligence service.

Akayev sees parallels between Russia's 2014 occupation of Crimea and the time when Soviet authorities deported scores of Crimean Tatars to Central Asia a...