More than 200 Tatar grave stones were vandalized in what might be an attempt to stir up ethnic tension between Muslim Tatars, ethnic Ukrainians and Russians in Ukraine's Black Sea Crimea peninsula.

Below is an article published by The Associated Press:

Unidentified assailants have vandalized a Tatar cemetery on Ukraine's Black Sea Crimea peninsula, destroying more than 200 grave stones and raising new tensions in the multiethnic region, authorities said Monday [11 February 2008].

The vandalism happened in the early hours of Sunday in Nyzhnyohirsky, a village in the center of the peninsula, Crimean police spokesman Olexander Dombrovsky said. 

The attackers killed a dog that was guarding the graves, and smashed the memorial stones with what appeared to be a giant hammer, Dombrovsky said.

Tensions between Muslim Tatars - a Turkic ethnic group - and ethnic Ukrainians and Russians persist in the Crimea. 

The deputy head of the Tatar community organization urged authorities to investigate the cemetery's desecration, saying it could have been an attempt to stir up ethnic tensions.

"The situation is very tense here," Remzi Ilyasov said. "It seems that someone is deliberately trying to destabilize the situation in the Crimea."

In 1944, the Tatar population of Crimea was deported en masse on the orders of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who accused them of collaborating with the Nazis. Many have returned since the 1991 Soviet collapse, seeking to regain ownership of their property and sometimes clashing with other residents over land and housing rights.