Media reports say a prominent Russian pro-war blogger Igor Girkin, who also goes by the nom de guerre Igor Strelkov, was arrested in Moscow on July 21.
CNN reports that Girkin is a former colonel in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and served as defense minister in the separatist so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine. Girkin was convicted of mass murder for his role in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine.
According to Russian state-run media, Girkin was taken from his home in Moscow by security agents on July 21 and charged with “extremist activity”.
His detention comes just three days after Russian state-run news agency TASS reported that retired Russian colonel Vladimir Kvachkov, an associate of Girkin, was facing criminal prosecution for “discrediting the Russian Armed Forces.”
While TASS did not specify which of Kvachkov’s comments sparked the charges, Kvachkov has also been openly critical of Putin, describing his government is “virtually non-existent” in on-camera remarks at an Angry Patriots event following the Wagner rebellion last month.
Citing the Meshchansky Court of Moscow, Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti later reported that Girkin had been charged with inciting extremist activity,.
“Strelkov is charged with Part 2 of Article 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (public calls for extremist activity),” the court said, according to Ria. If convicted Girkin reportedly could face up five years in prison.
According to the court, Girkin participated in the conflicts in Chechnya, Transnistria and Bosnia.
Girkin was remanded in custody until September 18 following his arrest on Friday, after the judge rejected his request to be placed under house arrest due to an apparent heart condition.
CNN says Girkin 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.
Girkin is co-founded an ultra-nationalist political group called the Angry Patriots Club this spring.
He 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 reportedly 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.”
CNN notes that the final straw for Putin may have come on July 18, when Girkin called the president a “lowlife” and a “cowardly bum” in a blistering post on his Telegram channel.
According to CNN, Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said that Girkin had “overstepped all conceivable boundaries a long time ago,” and that his arrest was the result of the Ministry of Defense reasserting control in the wake of the Wagner rebellion.
“This is a direct outcome of [Yevgeny] Prigozhin’s mutiny,” she reportedly said on Twitter, referring to the Wagner boss.
