ussian leaders might have infuriated navy officers following the arrest of former intelligence officer Igor Girkin, British defence chiefs stated.
Officers from Russia’s Investigative Committee arrested Mr Girkin, an excessive nationalist militia chief turned blogger, at his Moscow flat on Friday morning.
At a court docket look within the afternoon he was detained for 2 months on expenses of inciting extremism.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) stated in its newest intelligence replace that Mr Girkin had lengthy been a critic of the Russian defence ministry’s conduct of the conflict in Ukraine, however that in latest days his feedback “turned to direct criticism of the Russian president Vladimir Putin and his time in power”.
Mr Girkin was a former battlefield commander of Russia’s proxy forces and was convicted by a Dutch court docket over the 2014 capturing down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
The MoD stated his arrest “is likely to infuriate fellow members of the mil-blogger community – and elements within the serving military – who largely see Mr Girkin as an astute military analyst and patriot”.
They added: “While Girkin is no ally of the Wagner Group, he was likely only prepared to push the limits of public criticism in the context of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s June 2023 abortive mutiny. The taboo against unmasked criticism of the Putin regime has significantly weakened.”
Mr Girkin fought as a overseas volunteer in wars in Transnistria and Bosnia within the Nineties earlier than becoming a member of the FSB.
In 2014, he claimed credit score for “pulling the trigger” on the conflict in Donbas when he and a gaggle of volunteers seized management of the city of Slavyansk and proclaimed himself “defence minister” of the break free Donetsk People’s Republic.
Last November a Dutch court docket sentenced him to life in jail for the murders of 298 individuals on MH17, a Malaysian airways Boeing 777 {that a} Russian Buk missile launcher shot down over Ukraine in July that yr.
He fell out with the Kremlin and was compelled to return to Moscow, the place he based a short-lived Right-wing political motion geared toward overthrowing Putin earlier than turning to running a blog.
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