Sultan Klych-Girey

Sultan Shakhanovich Klych-Girey (; ; 15 March 1880 – 17 January 1947) was a Russian and Circassian general of Crimean Tatar descent. A career military officer, Klych-Girey participated in the suppression of Russian Revolution of 1905, fought in World War I and the Russian Civil War for the Russian Empire and White movement before becoming a supporter of Circassian nationalism as a White émigré. During World War II, he collaborated with Nazi Germany and served in Cossack collaborationist units. Captured by British forces in 1945, he was forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union and subsequently tried in Moscow for high treason and executed.

Early life and career Sultan Shakhanovich Klych-Girey was born in the city of Maykop or the aul of Ulyap, in what is presently the Russian republic of Adygea. He was a descendant of the Giray dynasty, and through the Giray dynasty a Genghisid via Jochi. After receiving an education at the Lutheran Gymnasium in Saint Petersburg, he joined the Imperial Russian Army in 1897 and joined the , from which he graduated in 1901.

Klych-Girey participated in the government crackdown on the Russian Revolution of 1905,

After the evacuation of the Crimea, Klych-Girey was instructed by Pyotr Wrangel to travel to and organise "white-green" resistance to Soviet rule. Klych-Girey proceeded to organise a resistance movement in the region, but was soon defeated by the Red Army and forced to flee to the Democratic Republic of Georgia.

In 1943, with the defeat of German forces in the North Caucasus, Klych-Girey's forces retreated with the Germans. In 1944, they were transferred to Italy, where Kazachi Stan was tasked with combatting the Italian resistance. In May 1945, together with Kazachi Stan, they retreated into Austria, surrendering to the British forces. Despite the growing anxiety among the refugees about forced repatriation, Klych-Girey attempted to calm the camp, stated that Western democracies would not surrender them to the Soviet Union.