arrest in Russia
From bloody warlord to uncomfortable enemy of the state – the deep fall of Putin’s henchman Girkin
Igor Girkin is brought before the magistrate
© Kirill Zykov / Sputnik Moscow Russia PUBLICATION
For 15 years, Igor Girkin murdered on behalf of Vladimir Putin. He was the one who carried the war to Ukraine. But the hero was quickly burned. Now the regime wants to put an end to it.
Igor Girkin wrote these words on July 19 on his Telegram channel. He was even more outspoken in his outburst against the Russian leader and his hidden First Lady:
“For 23 years there was nothing at the head of the country, which managed to throw sand in the eyes of a significant part of the population. […] The country will not survive another six years under the rule of this cowardly mediocrity,” was his verdict.
Two days later Girkin was arrested. He is accused of extremism. Officials from the investigative committee took him away, his wife Miroslawa Reginskaja reported on Friday. In the afternoon he was brought before the magistrate in Moscow.
Igor Girkin murdered for Putin for 15 years
With Girkin, Putin has a man arrested who once served him faithfully. Even if one would hardly suspect this in view of the most recent statements, Girkin was Putin’s murderous henchman for 15 years. According to his own statements, he already carried out bloody cleansing operations during the second Chechen war – under the supreme command of Putin, who on October 1, 1999 gave the order to the Russian army to cross the border into the Chechen part of the country.
Girkin was also the one who carried the war to Ukraine. In the summer of 2014, there was no avoiding the FSB officer in the Donbass: under the pseudonym Igor Strelkov (derived from the Russian word for shooter), he led the supposed pro-Russian separatists in the fight against the Ukrainian army, coordinated the capture of Skavyansk as the “defense minister” of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and was celebrated in Russia as a war hero. The man with the brush mustache was the face of the separatists for a long time – on behalf of Putin.
By the summer of 2014, Girkin had become something of a national hero. He himself claimed to have been largely an independent figure – perhaps too independent for the Kremlin. And too popular. Posters hung in Moscow advertising New Russia. He was the one on the front lines defending the Russian people against the “Ukrainian fascists” while Putin petted leopard cubs for the evening news.
In 2014, Girkin disappeared from the Ukrainian stage
Then came the decisive turning point: On July 17, a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane was shot down over eastern Ukraine on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. It is now clear that Girkin was one of the people responsible for shooting down the MH17 flight. There is an international arrest warrant against him. Shortly after the alleged downing of the passenger plane, the government in Kyiv released audio recordings of a conversation between him and another rebel leader about the downing of the passenger plane.
While it took the Dutch Criminal Court eight years to find Girkin guilty and sentence him to life for murder, on July 17, 2014, Putin already knew who was responsible for the downing of the MH17 flight.
The cult figure was now damaged. A few weeks after the shooting, Girkin left Ukraine and returned to Moscow. He has been blacklisted ever since, he told the Guardian seven years ago. He would not be granted a single minute of broadcasting on Russian state television. “For them, I’m an uncomfortable figure. They don’t know what to do with me: am I a hero or a terrorist? They can’t arrest me and put me in jail because that would be considered an admission to the West. They can’t distinguish me either, so I’m caught between the chairs.”
“We refuse to support the current political regime”
This balancing act has now turned to his disadvantage. For many years, the Kremlin let Girkin do it. At the very beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Girkin refused in one Declaration of the “All-Russian National Movement”, which he himself chaired, and Putin’s followers. “We refuse to support the current political regime,” it said at the time. Girkin spent the next year and a half criticizing the Russian government. From Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to the ousted Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin to Putin himself – everyone got their fat off.
The former intelligence officer accused Putin of cowardice and inconsistency. With the annexation of Crimea, the Kremlin chief “crossed the Rubicon,” but then there was an unexpected and illogical standstill. Putin neither dared to go forward nor step backwards. “He has no ideas and seems to be waiting for a miracle. He’s stuck in the middle of a swamp,” Girkin said of the Kremlin boss at the beginning of the war.
The greatest danger threatens Putin from the right
While other people in Russia were sentenced to long prison terms for showing blank slips of paper in public, Girkin got away with such statements. His FSB past ensured his protection. In the Russian state system, the domestic secret service is an entity that knows no higher power. Putin is also a product of this authority.
But after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s uprising, Putin clearly realized that the greatest danger was coming from the right. About the ultra-nationalists and war fanatics who manage to bundle the dissatisfied radical forces in the country. Those who see Russia’s defeat coming and slowly but surely realize that the weakness is in the Kremlin.
Girkin has risen to become one of the most prominent spokesmen for these radical groups in recent years. But Putin cannot afford a second Prigozhin. And so Girkin, who murdered for Putin for 15 years, now falls victim to a wave of purges himself.