Igor Girkin

Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin ( rus, И́горь Все́володович Ги́ркин, p=ˈiɡərʲ ˈfsʲevələdəvʲɪdʑ ˈɡʲirkʲɪn; born 17 December 1970), also known by the alias Igor Ivanovich Strelkov ( rus, И́горь Ива́нович Стрелко́в, p=ˈiɡərʲ ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ strʲɪlˈkof), is a Russian army veteran and former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who played a key role in the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and later the war in Donbas as an organizer of militant groups in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).

While leading a group of separatist militants into Ukraine in the 2014 Siege of Sloviansk, Girkin gained influence and attention, being appointed to the position of Minister of Defense in the Donetsk People's Republic, a puppet state of Russia.

Girkin was dismissed from his position in August 2014, after 298 people died when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down. Dutch prosecutors charged Girkin and three others for murder, and issued an international arrest warrant against him. Girkin has admitted "moral responsibility" but denies pushing the button. On 17 November 2022, Girkin was found guilty for the murder of 298 people, convicted of all charges in absentia, and issued a life sentence.

Girkin, a self-described Russian nationalist, was charged by Ukrainian authorities with terrorism. He has been sanctioned by the European Union, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, and Ukraine for his leading role in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities have called him a retired colonel of the GRU (Russia's external military intelligence organisation).

After his service in the war, Girkin returned to Russia as a political activist in 2014, reportedly believing that the "liberal clans" (liberal part of Russian elites) must be destroyed in favor of "law enforcement" ones. In 2016, he formed a political group advocating to " nitethe Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus, and other Russian lands into a single all-Russian state and ransformthe entire territory of the former USSR into an unconditional zone of Russian influence."

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Girkin regained attention as a milblogger, taking a strong pro-war stance but fiercely criticizing the military for what he saw as incompetence and "insufficiency". In October 2022, Girkin joined a volunteer unit fighting against Ukrainian forces.

Early life

Girkin was born in Moscow, Russia, on December 17, 1970.

According to ''The New York Times'', "his ideological rigidity precedes any connections he has to Russia's security services, stretching back at least to his days at the Moscow State Institute for History and Archives. There, Girkin obsessed over military history and joined a small but vocal group of students who advocated a return to monarchism."

Vice News claimed that "during the 1990s, Girkin wrote for the right-wing Russian newspaper ''Zavtra'', which is run by the anti-Semitic Russian nationalist Alexander Prokhanov" and where Alexander Borodai was an editor. Writing for ''Zavtra'' ("Tomorrow"), Girkin and Borodai, who too was reported to have fought for Russia-backed Transnistria and Republika Srpska separatists in Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina, together covered the Russian war against separatists in Chechnya and Dagestan.

He would also often write as a "Colonel in the Reserves" on Middle East subjects, such as the conflicts in Libya, Egypt and Syria, and for the Abkhazian Network News Agency (ANNA), a Russian-language pro-Russian publication which supports Abkhazian separatism in Georgia.

Involvement in Transnistria, Bosnia, and Chechnya

The Russian media has identified Girkin as an officer of the Russian military reserves who has expressed hardline views on eliminating perceived enemies of the Russian state. He has fought on the federal side in Russian counter-separatist campaigns in Chechnya and on the pro-Moscow separatist side in the conflict in Moldova's breakaway region of Transnistria.

In 1999, he published his memoirs of the fighting in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2014, he was accused by Bosnian media ( Klix.ba) and a retired Bosnian Army officer of having been involved in the Višegrad massacres in which thousands of civilians were killed in 1992.

The BBC
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