A nasty piece of work this one. The former FSB intelligence colonel, who also goes by the name Igor Strelkov, was tried at the Hague last year and convicted of war crimes in Ukraine when his group downed a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane (MH-17) in 2014, killing all 298 onboard. Girkin has called for the complete annihilation of Ukraine and made numerous critical comments against Russian leadership. Last week he called Putin "a cowardly bum" for his mishandling of the war.
Source: CNN
CNN — A prominent Russian pro-war blogger who has criticized President Vladimir Putin and his military’s mishaps in Ukraine was arrested on Friday, in a move that suggested the Kremlin’s patience with dissent has grown thinner in the wake of the Wagner mercenary rebellion last month.
Igor Girkin, a former KGB officer who helped Russia seize Crimea and was convicted of mass murder for his role in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine, was taken from his home in Moscow by security agents on Friday and charged with “extremist activity,” according to state media and a post on his Telegram account attributed to his wife.
Girkin, who also goes by the nom de guerre Igor Strelkov, is among the best-known of Russia’s “milbloggers,” a group of war correspondents who support the invasion but have grown increasingly critical of the military’s faltering operations in Ukraine. Girkin had in recent months taken his criticisms to another level, lambasting the Russian state and even Putin himself.
His comments lately have become even more scathing about Putin and Russian military leadership. He frequently calls the war "lost" by Russian incompetence.
He co-founded an ultra-nationalist political group called the Angry Patriots Club this spring, and told Reuters that Russia was “on the cusp of very grave internal political changes of a catastrophic character.”
The day after Wagner’s brief insurrection ended, on June 25, he said that if Putin “is not ready to take the leadership over the creation of war-ready conditions” in Russia, “then he really needs to transfer the powers, but legally, to someone who is capable of such hard work.”
But the final straw for Putin may have come on Tuesday, when Girkin called the president a “lowlife” and a “cowardly bum” in a blistering post on his Telegram channel.
A few hours later while protesting Girkin's arrest, his pals were arrested too.
And this is a valid point. Girkin/Strelkov is a terrorist, not simply a Putin critic. After the downing MH-17, Putin gave Girkin a promotion.
