Moscow: ultra-nationalist “militant” Igor Girkin arrested for extremism – Corriere.it

‘HIt’s the darkness of my old friend… ». In the novels of Russian dissidents, there are satirical videos with a still of him and his voice sound of silenceSimon & Garfunkel’s famous song.

Everyone knew that sooner or later Igor Girkin called Strelkov, which means archerHe will be silenced. Yesterday it was He was arrested for violating Articles 280 and 282 of the Russian Criminal CodeOn charges of extremism and proselytizing based on extremist ideas. It was also clear that when the time came, no one would cry for him. He is certainly not a victim we are talking about, but an executioner.

He was twenty when the Soviet Union collapsed. And in a sense, the jerkin continued to be a kid in the violent mayhem of the ’90s. In 1992 he fought in Transnistria against the Moldavian forces. Then he joined the Serbian forces in Bosnia. In 1993 he became the head of a mercenary assault unit in Chechnya, and then spent a long time as an FSB agent.. In April 2014, as the Kremlin hesitated to take any action, He entered the Donbass with his own militiaIt was created for the occasion and funded by the right-wing nationalist oligarch, Konstantin Malofeev. Within two weeks he killed, plundered and besieged the city of Sloviansk. His brutality provoked an immediate response from Kiev, which in turn persuaded Russia to enter the conflict. Without me, nothing would have happened, he proudly repeated.

That was his moment of glory, as well as the beginning of his decline. State media elevated him to the symbol of the Russian fighter, and appointed himself commander of the Donetsk militia. but His plans did not coincide with those of Vladimir Putin. In the ideological cauldron of the end of the Soviet Union he had fished out the utopia of Novorossiya, that region which between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries represented the Russian Empire’s furthest expansion. Girkin is a nostalgic Caesar, and Putin feels instead like a modern Caesar. There is a difference, even if they both share a tendency to reinterpret history.

Once the situation was normalized, it became clear that such an out of scale character was exhausting. Also because in addition to Ukraine still accusing him of terrorism until now, he was sanctioned by the European Union and brought to trial by the Dutch judiciary, which Convicted of shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 370which claimed the lives of 298 people, which made him wanted by the Hague Tribunal.

In 2016, Girkin founded his own movement, which denied Putin’s authority and sought a Russia capable of integrating Ukraine, Belarus, and even Kazakhstan.

The boss has always allowed himBecause the ultra-nationalist anger stirring in the depths of Russia must find outlets. but Times have changed after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s march to Moscow, Strelkov’s greatest enemy, the man with whom a wide audience of warmongering extremism met the blows of social agitation. Under the Russian sky, order and one vote are more needed.

Last October he made us wait in the dark for more than an hour in front of his movement headquarters, in the courtyard of a residential building on the outskirts of Moscow. Then one of his men came out with a phone in his hand and handed it over to us. He said he knew he was “almost dead”, and explained that he was still free thanks to his old friends from the FSB, but claimed he was “the first” to pull the trigger in Ukraine. His concern was the management of the military special operation, in his opinion too soft and indecisive. He often repeated, “We are already lost.”

Recently, he has stepped up his personal attacks on the Kremlin men. Putin was “Citrolli”, the Ministry of Defense inhabited by “incompetent” While the Russian Federation is “crumbling”. The ultra-nationalist Gemini Cricket showed at least some realism, acknowledging failure at the front, and even foreseeing internal revolutions, such as that of Prigozhin and his mercenary militia. Because, from time to time, Jerkin also spoke some truth. So, it was just a matter of time