On the evening of 6 December 2025, after a long illness, Ayder Seitossmanov passed away at a university hospital in the city of Ghent, Belgium. He was a prominent activist of the Crimean Tatar national movement, a delegate of the Kurultai of the Crimean Tatar People, a member of the Mejlis in previous convocations, and a well-known expert on local self-government reform in Ukraine.

Ayder Seitossmanov was born on 7 December 1964 in exile in Uzbekistan to a Crimean Tatar family deported from Crimea in 1944. He received his education at the Tashkent Institute of Communications. After returning to Crimea in the early 1990s, like thousands of his compatriots, he participated in rebuilding life in his historical homeland. He became actively involved in the national revival of the Crimean Tatar people.

In Crimea, Ayder Seitosmanov was one of the founders of civic initiatives aimed at the development of culture, education, and civil society. He worked at the Ismail Gasprinskiy Republican Crimean Tatar Library. He later led and developed civil society organizations that implemented educational, cultural, and informational projects, including initiatives to support schools in providing Crimean Tatar-language instruction.

From 2004 to 2014, Ayder Seitossmanov served as an expert with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, focusing on local self-government, economic issues, and civic initiatives. At the same time, he continued his professional development and obtained education at the National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine. He was among the first to consistently emphasize the importance of supporting civic initiatives from their very inception as a foundation for the sustainable development of territorial communities.

Following Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014, Ayder Seitossmanov was forced to leave the peninsula together with his family and relocate to mainland Ukraine. In Kyiv, he worked as an expert for a Swedish–Ukrainian project supporting decentralization, authored numerous analytical papers and publications, and cooperated with Ukrainian, international, and Crimean Tatar civic and cultural-educational organizations, remaining an active participant in the national movement.

Despite a serious illness that he courageously fought in recent years, Ayder Seitossmanov maintained an active civic stance, remained in constant contact with the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, and contributed to initiatives to develop civil society and protect the rights of Crimean Tatars.

The farewell ceremony for Ayder Seitossmanov took place on 14 December in the village of Chaiky, Kyiv region. Family members, friends, colleagues, and civic activists came to pay their last respects.

Eternal memory to Ayder Seitossmanov — a man whose life path was inseparably connected with the struggle for the rights, dignity, and future of the Crimean Tatar people.ького народу.