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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| FSB Col. Girkin turns his criticism to Putin |
| 2016-06-06 |
| Col. Girkin has been relentlessly critical of Russian actions with regard to Donetsk and Lugansk, prolly a major reason why he was cashiered. Two years ago, Igor Strelkov was the most notorious personality of the war in east Ukraine. A former Russian security forces officer, with a clipped grey moustache and a penchant for historical re-enactments, Strelkov led the takeover of the town of Slavyansk in April 2014, which presaged the armed conflict across the region. In Kiev, he was seen as a bloody and ruthless war criminal – a Kremlin agent sent by Moscow to wreak havoc in Ukraine. In Russia, he was portrayed as a valiant military hero, leading the local rebel forces in their fight against Kiev. He could be found striding through the corridors of the Donetsk rebel headquarters, with a Stechkin pistol in a vintage wooden holster at his hip and flanked by heavily armed bodyguards. Two years later, he cuts a very different figure, during an interview with the Guardian at his small Moscow office. In civilian clothing and slightly chubbier, he spent the encounter stroking his huge Maine Coon cat, Grumpy, which lay on the table in front of him. Strelkov has in recent weeks turned his rhetorical fire on the Kremlin itself, even if he no longer has an army with which to back up his words. “Putin and his circle have recently taken steps which I believe will almost inevitably lead to the collapse of the system,” Strelkov said. “We don’t know yet how, and we don’t know when, but we are certain it will collapse, and more likely sooner than later.” Pulled out of east Ukraine by the Kremlin in August 2014, reportedly because the Russian authorities felt he was too much of a liability, Strelkov entered a strange twilight zone, prevented from returning to the conflict or featuring in state-controlled media. After nearly two years of sitting quietly, the erstwhile poster boy of the pro-Russia cause last week released a declaration strongly critical of President Vladimir Putin, and predicting upheaval and bloodshed in Russia in the near future. Strelkov, whose real surname is Girkin (Strelkov is a pseudonym derived from the Russian for “the Shooter”), believes Putin dithered at the crucial moment in 2014, for fear of breaking off ties between Russia and the west for good. A radical nationalist who believes Russia should seize all the lands where ethnic Russians live, and who describes Ukrainians as “Russians who speak a different dialect”, Strelkov said it was fatal that Putin stopped after annexing Crimea. “He crossed the Rubicon, but then stopped unexpectedly and illogically. He didn’t retreat, but didn’t go forward either. He has no ideas and seems to be waiting for a miracle. He’s stuck in the middle of a swamp.” Strelkov, who studied history and models himself on the White officers who fought the Bolsheviks during the Russian civil war, has been put on international sanctions lists for his role in the Ukraine war. Last week, Polish MP Małgorzata Gosiewska presented a report on alleged war crimes committed by Strelkov to the international criminal court in the Hague, and hopes an inquiry will be launched. Strelkov does not deny having people shot for looting, but claims the executions were legal, as they were carried out according to a Soviet law on wartime justice. “I was the only person to hold trials, and not just shoot people. It was a troika of judges with a military prosecutor and a lawyer, and there were innocent verdicts as well,” he said. More at the link |
| Posted by:badanov |