On January 25, 2024, a russian court sentenced former military blogger and former Federal Security Service officer Igor Girkin to four years in prison for “public incitement of extremist activity” for his criticism of the war in Ukraine, the UK Defense Intelligence reports.
Igor Girkin fought for the separatist forces in Donetsk in 2014 and was briefly Defense Minister in temporarily occupied Donetsk. In 2022 he blogged in support of the invasion of Ukraine but later launched strong criticism of the russian leadership and its management of the war.
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Igor Girkin was arrested in July 2023 in the wake of the Prigozhin mutiny and in November 2023 he declared his intention to run in the 2024 russian Presidential election. Following the mutiny it is highly likely that the Kremlin became more sensitive to criticism of its conduct of the war from hard-line nationalists as they are one of the few credible alternatives to Putin’s leadership. Igor Girkin’s sentencing is part of a broader crackdown on those critical of the Kremlin and the war in Ukraine, reflecting the more authoritarian nature of life in Putin’s russia.
Read more: The UK Defense Intelligence: russian State Duma Considers Bill to Seize Assets of War Critics
