The 2016 Ukrainian entry garnered international media exposure both for Jamala, a Ukrainian singer of Crimean Tatar descent, and the song "1944", which was inspired by the story of her great-grandmother during the 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars in the Soviet Union under the rule of Joseph Stalin. Jamala stated that one of the reasons for entering the Ukrainian national selection and participating in the Eurovision Song Contest was so that people would hear a song written "in a state of helplessness", drawing comparison between the 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars and the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014. International media reported that although the song lyrics do not directly reference the Crimean deportation event in 1944, the entry could violate the Eurovision Song Contest rules which state that "no lyrics, speeches, gestures of political or similar nature shall be permitted". Representatives of the Russian parliament's lower house, State Duma, called for the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to reject the Ukrainian entry on the grounds that its selection was intended to offend Russia. Crimea's deputy prime minister, Ruslan Baalbek, stated that the Ukrainian authorities used the song for political purposes with the aim of "capitalising on the tragedy of the Tatars to impose on European viewers a false picture of alleged harassment of the Tatars in the Russian Crimea." In contrast, Mustafa Dzhemilev, a prominent Crimean Tatar politician in Ukraine, commended the selection of the song and stated: "I am confident that Jamala will present with dignity our country at the Eurovision. I believe that the whole world will know about 1944".