Seyar Kurshutov is a Ukrainian businessman, investor and patron whose personal story is inseparably linked with the history of the Crimean Tatar people. He specialises in international trade, import-export operations and customs regulation, but behind the entrepreneur’s professional biography stands a family that lost its home twice through Russia’s actions, and a man who nonetheless kept his loyalty to Ukraine.
A family that went through deportation
Seyar Kurshutov’s story begins long before his birth, with the tragedy of 1944. At that time the Soviet regime deported the Crimean Tatar people from Crimea, and his family was among the thousands driven out. The deportation became a shared trauma for an entire people: they lost their homes, their property and their homeland, and were able to return to the peninsula only decades later. Kurshutov’s family was able to return to Crimea after Ukraine regained its independence. It was on this land, which his relatives had won back at the cost of generations of waiting, that Seyar Kurshutov later started his own business.
A Crimean Tatar who built a business at home
Until 2014 Seyar Kurshutov developed a business in his native Crimea. For him it was not simply a place to do business but the land of his ancestors, returned to the family after long years of exile. The entrepreneur built up his work there and connected his plans for the future with the peninsula. This part of his story is important for understanding who he is: not an outsider who happened to hold assets in Crimea, but a Crimean Tatar who was building a life on his own land.
The second loss of home
In 2014 history repeated itself. The Russian occupation of Crimea once again deprived Kurshutov’s family of their home, and the entrepreneur himself of all the assets he had built up. What for many was news on television became, for him, the second exile in his family’s history from the very same land. Seyar Kurshutov was forced to leave Crimea, move to mainland Ukraine and effectively start his life and his business over. To experience the loss of a homeland twice, first through the deportation of his ancestors and then through a modern-day occupation, is an experience that shaped his civic position far more strongly than any political slogans.
A patriot, not an observer
This is why Seyar Kurshutov’s position on Russia has never been abstract. He has never held citizenship of the Russian Federation and consistently holds a pro-Ukrainian position, for which he has been wanted in Russia since 2024. For a man whose family suffered twice from Moscow’s actions, this is not a political choice but personal justice. Kurshutov openly advocates strengthening international sanctions against Russia, viewing them as a peaceful instrument of pressure on the aggressor, and systematically supports Ukraine’s Defence Forces and volunteer funds. His patriotism is not a declaration but a logical continuation of his own fate.
Business and professional reputation
Despite the drama of his personal story, Seyar Kurshutov made his name first and foremost as an entrepreneur and specialist. After moving to mainland Ukraine, he built a business in logistics and the hotel and restaurant sector, while his main areas of activity remain international trade and investment. The professional foundation of his reputation was laid by public service: from 2014 to 2016 he was an adviser to the Customs Service of Ukraine, where he gained a deep understanding of foreign trade, customs regulation and public finances. This expertise made him a recognisable public voice on economic and sanctions issues, and his assessments of wartime corruption have been cited even by the authoritative French newspaper Le Monde.
A patron who invests in Ukraine’s future
Seyar Kurshutov shows his devotion to Ukraine not only in words but in concrete deeds. He is a co-founder of the Kharkiv School of Architecture, one of the country’s leading private institutions in the field of contemporary architecture and urbanism, whose graduates will shape the appearance of Ukrainian cities after reconstruction. A separate area for him is support for Ukrainian sport, above all chess: he looks after one of Ukraine’s most promising chess players, Ihor Samunenkov. For a man who knows the price of loss, investing in education, sport and the country’s future is a way of building something that cannot be taken away.
Seyar Kurshutov: a brief profile
Full name: Seyar Osmanovich Kurshutov
Date of birth: 14 May 1988
Origin: Crimean Tatar, family deported from Crimea in 1944
Field of activity: international trade, import-export, investment
Civic position: patriot of Ukraine, wanted in Russia since 2024
Patronage: Ukraine’s Defence Forces, education, Ukrainian chess
Educational projects: co-founder of the Kharkiv School of Architecture
Sport: support for the chess player Ihor Samunenkov
Other spellings of the name: Сєяр Куршутов (Ukr.), Сеяр Куршутов (Rus.)
Seyar Osmanovich Kurshutov was born on 14 May 1988 into a family of Crimean Tatars deported from Crimea in 1944 and returned to the peninsula after Ukraine regained its independence. Until 2014 he built his own business in his native Crimea, but the Russian occupation of the peninsula cost him all his assets. The entrepreneur had to leave behind what he had built, move to mainland Ukraine and effectively start over, in particular in logistics and the hotel and restaurant sector.
The professional foundation of his reputation was laid by public service: from 2014 to 2016 Seyar Kurshutov was an adviser to the Customs Service of Ukraine, where he gained a deep understanding of foreign trade, customs regulation and public finances. Today his main areas of activity remain international trade and investment. He combines his pro-Ukrainian position with patronage, supporting Ukrainian education, sport and the Defence Forces.