Sunday, August 14, 2022

Russians detain their own former spy chief en route to the frontline in Ukraine
Igor Girkin is said to have signed up to join Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine after growing frustrated with the slow progress of the conflict. Photo: Russian Defence Ministry


James Kilner
August 15 2022 02:30 AM

A former spy for Russia who led rebels in Ukraine’s Donetsk region – and has been linked to the shooting down of a commercial airliner – has been arrested as he tried to join the frontline of the Kremlin’s war.

Igor Girkin, also called Igor Strelkov, is said to have signed up to join Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine after growing frustrated with the slow progress of the conflict.

Social media photos show a shaven Mr Girkin, a former FSB colonel, without his trademark moustache in an apparent attempt to travel in disguise to the battle near the city of Kherson, in the south of Ukraine.

Kherson is the only sizeable Ukrainian city to have fallen to the Russians since the invasion on February 24 and even this is now under threat from a Ukrainian counter-offensive that is reportedly gathering force on the northern banks of the Dnipro river.

A Russian nationalist supporter of Mr Girkin, Alexander Zhuchkovsky, said that Mr Girkin had been detained in Russian-controlled Crimea as he travelled to the frontline.

“Strelkov [Girkin] is a man with vast military experience,” Mr Zhuchkovsky said. “It is a great political crime that such a person cannot get to the front.”

Mr Girkin gained a cult following among hardcore Russian nationalists in 2014 after he led separatist rebel forces seeking to hive the mostly Russian-speaking Donetsk region away from Ukraine following Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea.

He styled himself as an officer of the Imperial Russian Army, striding around, barking orders and chain-smoking.

He also imposed an unforgiving form of martial law in the area under his control, ordering that looters be shot by firing squad. Ukrainian officials have also accused him of shooting prisoners of war.

Analysts said Mr Girkin travelled to Donetsk in 2014 as a freelance nationalist fighter and that his charisma and know-how propelled him into the leadership. For a few months, the Kremlin tolerated his leadership in Donetsk but they ditched him after rebel fighters used a Russian missile system to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014, killing 298 people.

Most of those killed on Flight 17 were Dutch and, in 2019, prosecutors in the Netherlands charged Mr Girkin with their murder. The Russian authorities have ignored the arrest warrant.

In the past few years, Mr Girkin has been spotted on the Moscow Metro cutting a forlorn figure. Now aged 51, his face is puffy, his hair has turned grey and his moustache has lost its sharpness.

However, the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine in February rejuvenated Mr Girkin who has established himself as a military analyst on the Telegram social media channel.

He supports the invasion of Ukraine but is critical of the Kremlin for not committing itself totally.

He has also used Telegram to deny he had tried to join a frontline unit.

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