President Vladimir Putin promised yesterday to help improve the lives of Crimean Tatars, but warned that members of the Muslim minority must accept their future lies with Russia after Moscow annexed their Black Sea homeland from Ukraine.

Putin met representatives of the Crimean Tatars before the 70th anniversary of the Sunni Muslim group’s wartime mass deportation from Crimea to Soviet Central Asia under dictator Josef Stalin, during which many died.

He faces a tough task in winning over the Turkic-origin Tatars, who make up more than 12 per cent of Crimea’s population of two million, because many associate Moscow with oppression, exile and suffering. Dissent or unrest among the Muslim community, whose situation was described by the 57-nation OSCE rights and democracy forum this week as ‘particularly precarious’, could pose a headache for the Kremlin leader.

Putin said a decree he signed last month to rehabilitate the Tatars – accused by Stalin of sympathising with Nazi Germany – was part of an effort “to establish a normal livelihood and create conditions for the strong development of the Crimean Tatar people in their homeland.”

However, the guest list at the meeting at Putin’s residence in Sochi reflected a split in sentiments among Crimean Tatars.

It included Vasvi Abduraimov, a leader to whom Putin recently awarded a state medal for backing the annexation.