Russian nationalist and veteran of the fighting in Ukraine in 2014 Igor Girkin was sentenced this Thursday by Russian justice to 4 years in prison. Supporting Moscow’s offensive against Kyiv, he is today a critic of the Kremlin.
Igor Girkin, also known by the nom de nom Igor Strelkov, was the most prominent leader of Russian-backed separatist fighters in Ukraine’s Donetsk region in 2014, when rebellion erupted after the ouster of Ukraine’s allied president to Russia.
Briefly becoming defense minister in the self-proclaimed separatist government, he left his post in August 2014 after the Malaysian airliner MH17 was shot down over Donetsk, killing all 298 people on board. He was convicted in absentia of murder in the Netherlands, where the plane departed, for his role in the affair..
Returning to Russia, he became a regular commentator and nationalist activist. While he supported the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he quickly became critical of the conduct of the war.
On his Telegram account, he goes so far as to describe Vladimir Putin as a person of “cowardly mediocrity“Arrested in July for extremism, the Moscow court found him guilty”public calls to commit extremist actions“, condemning him to serve his sentence of 4 years in prison in a camp at “ordinary diet“.
Increased repression
This prison sentence is a first for the Russian nationalist movement. It is part of a campaign of repression which targets all critics of the Kremlin and its offensive in Ukraine. Igor Guirkine was arrested in July, a month later the aborted rebellion of Yevgeny Prigojine, the leader of the Wagner group, since killed in the explosion of his plane, presented as an accident by the Kremlin.
Since the launch of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the government has hardened its repressive apparatus, for example by adopting laws criminalizing statements and reports intended to discredit the Russian army.
The sentence handed down against Igor Girkin nevertheless remains significantly less severe than those imposed on other personalities who denounced the war, notably the 25 years in prison handed down to opponent Vladimir Kara-Murza.