I
will post information about the Russian Nationalist Commander, Igor Girkin from
Wikipedia and other news sources links.
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Igor Girkin
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Colonel
Igor Girkin |
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Nickname(s)
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"Strelkov"
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Born
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17 December 1970
Moscow, Soviet Union |
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Allegiance
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Service/branch
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Years of
service
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June 1992 – July 1993
August 1996 - March 2012 |
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Rank
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Colonel
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Battles/wars
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Other work
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Donetsk People's Republic Defense Minister (16 May – 14
August 2014)
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Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin (Russian: И́горь
Все́володович Ги́ркин; IPA: [ˈiɡərʲ ˈfsʲɛvələdəvʲɪtɕ
ˈɡʲirkʲɪn], Ukrainian:
І́гор Все́володович Гі́ркін),
also known as Igor Ivanovich Strelkov (Russian: И́горь Ива́нович
Стрелко́в; IPA: [ˈiɡərʲ
ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ strʲɪlˈkof],
Ukrainian: Ігор Іванович
Стрєлков), born on 17
December 1970, is a Russian army artillery veteran who played a key role in the
War in Donbass as an organizer of the Donetsk People's Republic independence
movement. Girkin, a self-described Russian nationalist and imperialist,
participant of several other conflicts, was charged by Ukraine authorities with
terrorism and is currently sanctioned by the European Union for his leading
role in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities have
called him a retired colonel of the GRU (Russia's external military
intelligence organisation) who participated in the 2014 Crimea crisis.
According
to different sources, he unreservedly demands that the "liberal
clans" (liberal part of the Russian elite) be destroyed.
He
is currently being sued by the families of eighteen passengers who were killed
when forces under his command allegedly shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
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Igor
Strelkov with a flag
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Biography
Involvement in earlier conflicts
The
Russian media has identified Girkin as an officer of the Russian military
reserves who has expressed hardline views on eliminating perceived enemies of
the Russian state and has fought on the federal side in Russian
counter-separatist campaigns in Chechnya and on the
pro-Moscow separatist side in the conflict in Moldova's breakaway region of Transnistria. According to various sources,
Girkin took part in the Bosnian War as a
volunteer on Serb side, and in Chechnya under contract.[note 1] In 1999, he published his
memoirs of the fighting in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2014, he was accused by
Bosnian media (Klix) and a
retired Bosnian
Army officer of having been involved in Višegrad massacres
in which thousands of civilians were killed in 1992.
The
BBC
reported Strelkov may have worked for Russia's Federal
Security Service (FSB) in a counter-terrorism unit, citing Russian
military experts. According to Russian media, he has served as an FSB officer
and his last role before retirement was reportedly with the FSB's Directorate
for Combating International Terrorism.
In
2014 Anonymous International disclosed what it said were Girkin's personal
emails, revealing that he had served in the FSB for 18 years from 1996 to March
2013, including in Chechnya from 1999 to 2005, The Moscow Times
reported. The newspaper also said Girkin was born in Moscow and that it
contacted him by email and phone but that he would not confirm the claims. A
local pro-Russia militia leader in Ukraine, Vyacheslav
Ponomarev, a self-described old friend of Girkin's, said the
information about Girkin was true. His pseudonym "Strelkov"
("Strelok") can be roughly translated as "Rifleman" or
"Shooter". He has also been dubbed Igor Grozny ("Igor the
Terrible").
Alexander
Cherkasov, head of Russia's leading human rights group Memorial,
is convinced that the "Igor Strelkov" of Ukraine is the same person
as a Russian military officer called "Strelkov", who was identified
as being directly responsible for at least six instances (on four separate
occasions) of the forced
disappearance and presumed murder of residents of Chechnya's
mountain Vedensky District
village of Khatuni and nearby settlements of Makhkety and Tevzeni in 2001–2002,
when "Strelkov" was attached to the 45th
Detached Reconnaissance Regiment special forces unit of the Russian Airborne
Troops based near Khatuni. None of these crimes were solved by
official investigations. Website of Chechnya's official human rights ombudsman
in fact lists at least two residents of Khatuni who went missing in 2001
(Beslan Durtayev and Supyan Tashayev) as having been kidnapped from their homes
and taken to the 45th DRR base by the officers known as "Colonel Proskuryn
and Strelkov Igor"; another entry lists the missing person Beslan Taramov
as abducted in 2001 in the village of Elistandzhi by the 45th DRR servicemen
led by "Igor Strelko (nicknamed Strikal)". Cherkasov too lists
Durtayev and Tashayev (but not Taramov) among the alleged victims of
"Strelkov". Cherkasov and other observers suspected it was in fact
the same "Strelkov" until May 2014, when Strelkov / Girkin himself
confirmed he has been present at Khatuni in 2001, where he fought against the
"local population". According to Cherkasov, as a result of Girkin's
actions in Chechnya, two sisters of one of those "disappeared", Uvais
Nagayev,[note 2] in effect turned to
terrorism and died three years later: one of these sisters, Aminat Nagayeva,
blew herself up in the 2004
Russian aircraft bombings over the Tula Oblast aboard a Tu-134 "Volga-Aeroexpress"
airliner, killing 43; the other sister, Rosa Nagayeva, participated in the Beslan hostage
crisis that same year.
The
emails leaked in May 2014 and allegedly authored by Girkin contain his diaries
from Bosnia and Chechnya he sent to his friends for review. One story describes
an operation of capturing Chechen activists from a village of Mesker-Yurt.
Asked by one of friends why he doesn't publish them, Girkin explain that
"people we captured and questioned almost always disappeared without
trace, without court, after we were done" and this is why these stories
cannot be openly published.
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Igor Girkin/Strelkov: "It was me who
pulled the trigger of war (in Ukraine)"
[PHOTO SOURCE: https://twitter.com/dajeypetros/status/538370645084880897]
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The launching trigger of war after all I pressed. If our squad did not cross the border, at the end all would have been finished as in Kharkiv or Odessa. Practically, the flywheel of war which lasts until now was launched by our squad. And I bear a personal responsibility for what is happening there.Igor Girkin, Newspaper "Zavtra", 20 November 2014
Involvement in the Ukrainian conflict
See
also: Siege of Sloviansk and War
in Donbass
1.2.1
Siege of Sloviansk
On
12 April 2014, Girkin led a group of militants who seized the executive
committee building, the police department, and the Security Service of Ukraine
offices in Sloviansk. In an interview, Girkin claimed
that his militia was formed in Crimea and consisted of volunteers from Russia, Crimea,
and also from other regions of Ukraine (Vinnitsa, Zhitomir, Kiev) and many
people from Donetsk and the Lugansk region. According to him, two thirds were
Ukrainian citizens. The majority of men in the unit had combat experience. Many
of those with Ukrainian citizenship have fought in the Russian Armed
Forces in Chechnya and Central Asia. Others fought in Iraq and
Yugoslavia with the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The
SBU presented Strelkov's presence in Donbass as proof of Russia's involvement
in the East Ukraine crisis and released intercepted telephone conversations
between "Strelkov" and his supposed handlers in Moscow. Russia denied
any interference in Ukraine by its troops outside Crimea. In July, Ukrainian
authorities alleged Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu has coordinated all of Girkin's
actions, supplying him and "other terrorist leaders" with "the
most destructive weapons" since May and instructing him directly, with
Russian President Vladimir Putin's
approval.
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Igor
Girkin with his cat
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1.2.2
Allegations of sabotage and terrorism
On
15 April, the Security
Service of Ukraine (SBU) opened a criminal proceeding against
"Igor Strelkov". He was described as a Russian recruiter and leader
of armed "saboteurs" and a chief organizer of the "terror"
in Ukraine's Sloviansk Raion
(including an ambush that killed one and wounded three SBU officers), who had
previously coordinated Russian military takeovers of Ukrainian units in Crimea during the 2014 Crimea crisis
in March, after having crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border in Simferopol on 26 February. In Crimea, he
was reported to be instrumental in negotiating the defection of the Ukrainian Navy commander Denis Berezovsky. The next day (16 April),
he allegedly sought to recruit Ukrainian soldiers captured at the entrance to Kramatorsk.
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The commander,
pictured with his bodyguards in Donetsk last week, claimed blood serum and
medication had been found at the site in eastern Ukraine [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2697895/Now-rebel-commander-blamed-downing-MH17-says-bodies-aren-t-fresh-claims-corpses-dead-days.html]
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1.2.3
Allegations of kidnapping, torture and murder
Ukrainian
government claims Strelkov was behind the 17 April kidnapping, torture and
murder of a local Ukrainian politician Volodymyr Rybak and a 19-year-old college
student Yury Popravko. Rybak's abduction by a group of men in Horlivka was
recorded on camera. The SBU released portions of intercepted calls in which
another Russian citizen, alleged GRU officer and Girkin's subordinate Igor Bezler orders Rybak to
be "neutralized", and a subsequent conversation in which
"Strelkov" is heard instructing Ponomarev to dispose of
Rybak's body, which is "lying here [in the basement of the separatist
headquarters in Sloviansk] and beginning to smell." Rybak's corpse with a
smashed head, multiple stab wounds and ripped stomach was found later in April
in a river near Sloviansk; Popravko's body was also found nearby. Ukrainian
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov described Girkin as "a monster and a killer"
and the incident helped to prompt the government's "anti-terrorist"
military offensive against the pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine.
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On June 29, at noon, a solemn consecration
ceremony of the banner of the 1st Volunteer Battalion of Slavyansk
took place in the Svyato-Voskresenskiy temple in the city of Slavyansk.
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1.2.4
Functionary of the Donetsk People's Republic
During
the weekend of 26–27 April, the political leader of the separatist Donetsk
People's Republic (DPR) and Girkin's long-time friend, Alexander Borodai, also a Russian national
from Moscow, ceded control of all separatist fighters in the entire Donetsk
region to him. On 26 April, "Strelkov" made his first public
appearance when he gave a video interview to Komsomolskaya
Pravda where he confirmed that his militia in Sloviansk came
from Crimea. He said nothing about his own background, denied receiving weapons
or ammunition from Russia, and announced that his militia would not release the
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) observers that it had taken hostage unless pro-Russia activists were
first freed by the Ukrainian government. On 28 April, the EU sanctioned
"Igor Strelkov" as a GRU staff member believed to be a coordinator of
armed actions and a security assistant to Crimea's Sergey Aksyonov. On 29 April,
Girkin appointed a new police chief for Kramatorsk. On 12 May, "I.
Strelkov" declared himself "the Supreme Commander of the DPR"
and all of its "military units, security, police, customs, border guards,
prosecutors, and other paramilitary structures."
According
to a report issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights, "reportedly, on 26 May, by order of Strelkov,
Dmytro Slavov ('commander of a company of the people's militia') and Mykola
Lukyanov ('commander of a platoon of the militia of Donetsk People's Republic')
were 'executed' in Slovyansk, after they were 'sentenced' for 'looting, armed
robbery, kidnapping and abandoning the battle field'. The order, which was
circulated widely and posted in the streets in Slovyansk, referred to a decree
of the Presidium
of the Supreme Council of the USSR of 22 June 1941 as the basis for
the execution." The report also mentions Strelkov's efforts to recruit
local women into his armed formations: "A particular call for women to
join the armed groups was made on 17 May through a video released with Girkin
'Strelkov', urging women of the Donetsk region to enlist in combat units."
Sloviansk's separatist "people's mayor" and former boss of Girkin,
Ponomarev, was himself detained on an order of "Strelkov" on 10 June
for "engaging in activities incompatible with the goals and tasks of the
civil administration".
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On June 29, at noon, a solemn consecration
ceremony of the banner of the 1st Volunteer Battalion of Slavyansk
took place in the Svyato-Voskresenskiy temple in the city of Slavyansk.
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://slavyangrad.org/2014/06/29/briefings-june-29-2014/]
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1.2.5
Loss of Sloviansk
On
the night of 4–5 July, during a large-scale offensive by the Ukrainian military
following the end of a 10-day ceasefire on 30 June, Girkin and his militants
fled from Sloviansk, which was then captured by Ukrainian forces, thus ending
the separatist occupation of the city which had started on 6 April. Shortly
before this, a video was posted on YouTube in which Girkin desperately pleaded
for military aid from Russia for "Novorossiya" ("New Russia",
a separatist name for eastern Ukraine) and said Sloviansk "will fall
earlier than the rest." Other rebel leaders denied Girkin's assessment
that the people's militia were on the verge of collapse. One of them, the
self-proclaimed "people's governor" of Donetsk Pavel Gubarev, compared Girkin to the 19th
century Russian general Mikhail Kutuzov,
claiming that both "Strelkov" and Kutuzov would "depart only
before a decisive, victorious battle." However, his retreat was strongly
criticized by the Russian nationalist Sergey Kurginyan and a rumor inside Russian
ultranationalist circles alleged Russia's powerful "grey cardinal"
figure Vladislav Surkov
conspired with east Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov to organize a campaign
against "Strelkov" as well as against the Eurasianism ideologue Alexander Dugin. Kurginyan accused Strelkov
of surrendering Sloviansk and not
keeping his oath to die in Sloviansk. Kurginyan believes that surrendering
Sloviansk is a war crime, and Strelkov should be responsible for that. Donetsk
People's Republic security minister Alexander Khodakovsky, the SBU Alfa defector and commander of the rebel
Vostok Battalion, also protested and threatened a mutiny.
In
social networks Girkin claimed that "Junta forces" drive their newly
mobilized Ukrainian soldiers into the ground with bulldozers, National Guard of
Ukraine shoots at peaceful citizens and own "punishers" and the
"punishers" with use of artillery and MRLs succeeded in destroying
the local potato harvest.
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Pro-Russian
separatist commander Igor Girkin with his Stechkin APS Pistol.
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1.2.6
Loss of Sloviansk aftermath
On
10 July 2014, news outlet Mashable reported
finding execution orders three days previously for Slavov and Lukyanov in
Girkin's abandoned Sloviansk headquarters. The orders were signed
"Strelkov" with the name Girkin Igor Vsevolodovich printed
underneath. Also sentenced to death was Alexei Pichko, a civilian who was
caught stealing two shirts and a pair of pants from an abandoned house of his
neighbour; according to an unconfirmed story, his body "had been dumped on
the front lines" after he was executed. On 24 July, Ukrainian authorities
exhumed several corpses from a mass grave site on the grounds of a children’s
hospital near the Jewish cemetery in Slovyansk, which might contain as many as
20 bodies of those executed by order of "Strelkov". Among the
identified victims were four Ukrainian
Protestants who the police and locals said have been kidnapped on 8
June after attending a service at their church, falsely accused of helping the
Ukrainian Army, robbed for their cars, and shot the following day.
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Bezler (left), Kozitsyn and Strelkov
reportedly discussed the downing. Photos: Reuters, SCMP Pictures
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1.2.7
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
Multiple
sources cited a post on the VKontakte social
networking service that was made by an account under Girkin's name which
acknowledged shooting down an aircraft at approximately the same time that the
civilian arliner Malaysia
Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was reported to have crashed in eastern
Ukraine in the same area near the Russian border on 17 July 2014. The post
specifically referenced how warnings were issued for planes not to fly in their
airspace and the downing of a Ukrainian military Antonov An-26 transport plane which the
Ukraine Crisis Media Center suggested was a case of misidentification with the
MH17. This post was deleted later in the day and the account behind it claimed
that Girkin has no official account on this social service. Most of the 298
victims in the plane's crash came from the Netherlands; the country's biggest
newspaper De Telegraaf
included Girkin's photo in the front page collage of pro-Russian rebel leaders
under the one-word headline "Murderers" ("Moordenaars").
Russian opposition lawyer and politician Mark Feygin posted a purported order by Girkin
where he instructs all his men and commanders who "have in their
possession personal effects from this plane" to deliver the found items to
his HQ so "the valuables (watches, earrings, pendants, and other jewelry
and items from valuable metals)" would be transferred to "the Defense
Fund of the DPR." Girkin was reported to the author of an alternative
version of the incident, wherein "no living people were aboard the plane
as it flew on autopilot from Amsterdam, where it had been pre-loaded
with 'rotting corpses'." This conspiracy theory was then distributed and
discussed in all of Russia state-controlled media outlets.
At
his press-conference on 28 July 2014, Girkin denied his connection to the
downed plane and announced that his militants were killing
"black-skinned" mercenaries.
According
to ITAR-TASS news agency on Wednesday, 13 August 2014, Girkin was seriously
wounded the previous day in fierce fighting in the pro-Russian rebel held
territories of Eastern Ukraine, and was described to be in "grave"
condition. DNS representative Sergei Kavtaradze refuted this news this shortly
after, saying Strelkov is "alive and well".
In
July 2015 he was sued in American court by families of 18 victims for damages
to the amount of 900 million US$ under the Torture
Victim Protection Act of 1991.
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Miroslava Reginskoy and Igor Strelkov
[PHOTO SOURCE: https://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/strelkov-gets-married-this-must-be-a-very-old-photo/] |
1.2.8
Dismissal as Donetsk People's Republic minister
On
14 August leadership of DNR announced that Strelkov was dismissed from his
position of defense minister "on his own request" as he was assigned
"some other tasks". On 16 August the Russian TV-Zvezda claimed that
Strelkov was "on vacation" and was appointed a as military chief of
combined forces of Lugansk and Donetsk (he previously was in command of Donetsk
forces only) and after he returns he will be put to a task of creating an
unified command over forces of Federal State of Novorossiya. According to Stanislav Belkovskiy,
the main reason for removal of Girkin from the "defense minister"
position was the amount of attention caused by downing the MH17
and negative impact on Russia's actions in Ukraine that it caused.
On
22 August a former rebel Anton Raevsky ("Nemetz") said in an
interview in Rostov-on-Don
that Strelkov and his supporters are being cleansed from DNR by FSB because of
this insufficient compliance with Kremlin's policy on the republic.
On
28 August Russian media published photos of Girkin walking with Alexander Dugin and Konstantin Malofeev
in Valaam Monastery
in northern Russia.
In
November 2014 in an interview for "Moscow Speaking" radio said that
"the existence of Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics in their current
form, with the low-profile but still bloody war, is definitely convenient for
USA in the first place, and only for them, because they are the ulcer that
divides Russia and Ukraine". Later in November in an interview for
"Zavtra" newspaper Girkin stated that the war in Donbass was launched
by his detachment despite both Ukrainian government and local combatants
avoided an armed confrontation before. Also he recognized himself responsible
for actual situation in Donetsk and other cities of the region.
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Igor
Girkin on his desk
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1.2.9
Involvement in Crimean referendum
In
an interview on 22 January 2015 Igor Girkin, one of the major "Russian
self-defence" commanders in 2014 Crimean crisis,
explained that the "overwhelming national support for the
self-defence" as portrayed by the Russian media was fiction, and they
actually had to "forcibly drive the deputies to vote [to join
Russia]". Under his command, the rebels "collected" the deputies
into the chambers to vote. A majority of the law enforcement, administration
and army did not support the "self-defence" (one notable exception
being Berkut)
and only the presence of regular Russian army in Crimea "made the whole
thing work". According to the Nemtsov Report Girkin also acknowledged
that he resigned from his official position in the DNR due to pressure from the Kremlin. He also stated that Vladislav Surkov plays a decisive role in
Donbass.
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Igor
Strelkov being interviewed
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Other activities
In
late April 2014, Strelkov was identified by Ukrainian intelligence as Colonel
Igor Girkin, registered as a resident of Moscow. Journalists visiting the
apartment where he allegedly lived with his mother, sister, as well as his
former wife and two sons, were told by neighbors that a "fancy black
car" had that same morning picked up the woman living there. The neighbors
also described him as "polite" and quiet, and knew him under two
surnames, Girkin and Strelkov. Girkin is known as a fan of military-historical
movement and has participated in several reenactments connected with various periods
of Russian and international history, but especially the Russian Civil War where he would play a White movement officer. His personal idol
and role model is said to be the White Guard general Mikhail Drozdovsky,
killed in a battle with the Red Army in 1919.
According to The New York Times,
"his ideological rigidity precedes any connections he has to Russia’s
security services, stretching back at least to his days at the Moscow
State Institute for History and Archives. There, Mr. Strelkov
obsessed over military history and joined a small but vocal group of students
who advocated a return to monarchism."
Vice News claimed that "during the
1990s, Girkin wrote for the right-wing Russian newspaper Zavtra, which
is run by the anti-Semitic Russian nationalist Alexander Prokhanov"
and where Borodai was an editor. Writing for Zavtra
("Tomorrow"), Girkin and Borodai, who too was reported to previously
having fought with Girkin for Russia-backed Transnistria and Republika Srpska separatists in Moldova and
Bosnia and Herzegovina, together covered the Russian war against separatists in
Chechnya and Dagestan. He would also often write as
"Colonel in the Reserves" on the Middle East subjects, such as the
conflicts in Libya, Egypt and Syria, for Georgia's pro-Russian Abkhazian separatist Russian language Abkhazian
Network News Agency (ANNA).
Strelkov
claims that he worked as a security chief for the controversial Russian
businessmen Konstantin Malofeev.
The Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic Alexander Borodai was also a close
associate of the businessman.
Andrey Piontkovsky
adduces the name of Girkin among the names of like-minded persons and says,
"The authentic high-principled Hitlerites, true Aryans Dugin, Prokhanov,
Prosvirin, Kholmogorov, Girkin, Prilepin are a marginalized minority in
Russia." Piontkovsky adds, "Putin has stolen the ideology of the
Russian Reich from the domestic Hitlerites, he has preventively burned them
down, using their help to do so, hundreds of their most active supporters in
the furnace of the Ukrainian Vendée."
In his interview to Radio Liberty,
Piontkovsky says, maybe the meaning of the operation conducted by Putin is to
reveal all these potential passionate leaders of social revolt, send them to
Ukraine and burn them in the furnace of the Ukrainian Vendée. Moreover, this is
namely what is prompted to him to do by collective Remchukov in his writings...
In
his interview to Oleksandr Chalenko on 2 December 2014, Girkin confirmed that
he is colonel of FSB. He also acknowledged that among the so-called Novorossiya
militants exists anarchy. Particularly militants of Igor Bezler act independently, the
so-called "Russian Orthodox Army" has split in half, others forces
represent a patched cover of various unrelated groups. Girkin was also critical about
the ongoing attacks on the Donetsk
International Airport calling them as pointless and harmful.
As
one of the Lugansk commanders Alexander Bednov ("Batman") was killed
by end of December 2014 by other militants Girkin fiercely criticized it as a
"murder", "gangster ambush" and suggested that other
commanders seriously consider leaving Donbass to Russia, as he did. In January
2015 in an interview for Anna News Girkin said that in his opinnion
"Russia is currently at state of war", since the volunteers who
arrive to Donbass "are being supplied with arms and shells". He also
noted that "he never separated Ukraine from Soviet Union in his mind"
so he considers the conflict as a "civil war in Russia".
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Look-alike
of Igor Strelkov – Grandson of legendary Generalissimo Alexander Suvorov,
Alexander Arkadyevich Suvorov
[PHOTO
SOURCE: http://allrus.me/russian-officer-igor-strelkov/]
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Notes
1. The pro-Russian group Heroes of South-East (Герои Новороссии) published Strelkov's past military assignments, disclosed by himself on military reconstructions forum: June 1993 – July 1994 military unit (в/ч) 11281 МО ПВО; Feb–Dec 1995 contract service 22033 «Х» (166-я гв. МСБР); 24 March 1995 till 10 October 1995 67th ОГСАД; August 1996 – July 2000 military unit 31763. July 2000 – April 2005 military unit 78576. After 2005 military unit 36391. The latter was identified as international terrorism prevention unit of FSB (Управление по борьбе с международным терроризмом 2-й Службы ФСБ России).
2.
Uvais Nagayev was a resident of
Tevzani who was originally detained by the troops of the 45th DRR on 27 April
2001. After surviving a summary execution that killed Zaur Dagayev (Nagayev was
wounded and pretended to be dead), Nagayev was again detained by a group of
federal servicemen including Strelkov and then held for ransom before being
transported to Khankala
military base and vanishing without a trace. According to an FSB-connected
mediator, Nagayev had been tortured into confessing to unspecified crimes
before he was executed and his body was destroyed with explosives.
INTERNET
SOURCE: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/140722/8-things-you-should-know-about-igor-girkin-the-ukraine-separatist
Laura ColarussoJuly 22,
2014 10:44
8 things you should know about Igor Girkin, the Ukraine
separatist leader
He's been called brutal and deranged, and he may have shot down a
passenger jet. But did you know he also likes to play dress-up?
 |
|
The commander,
pictured with his bodyguards in Donetsk last week, claimed blood serum and
medication had been found at the site in eastern Ukraine [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2697895/Now-rebel-commander-blamed-downing-MH17-says-bodies-aren-t-fresh-claims-corpses-dead-days.html]
|
In
the aftermath of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 tragedy, the world's attention
turned again to eastern Ukraine, the crash site where pro-Moscow separatists
are fighting government forces. Much of the scrutiny has fallen on the rebels'
leader, Igor Girkin, especially since he reportedly bragged
about shooting down a Ukrainian aircraft at the same time and near the same
place where MH17 went down. (The separatists also didn't help their cause when
they blocked crash investigators from the site, took the aircraft's black boxes
and looted the debris.)
So
who exactly is this guy? Here are eight things you need to know about the man
who's leading the separatists in Ukraine.
1. He's a conspiracy theorist.
On
July 18, a pro-separatist website reported
that Girkin had accused Ukrainian authorities of stashing already deceased
bodies on the flight. "A significant number of the bodies weren't
fresh," the site, Russkaya Vesna, quoted Girkin as saying. "Ukrainian
authorities are capable of any baseness." He went on to say that he
couldn't confirm the information, but that many of the victims smelled as
though they'd been decomposing for a while.
2. He often goes by another name.
Girkin's
nom
de guerre is Igor Strelkov, which loosely translates to
"rifleman" in Russian. Leaflets circulated around mid-May in the separatist
stronghold of Donetsk referred to him as Colonel Igor Strelkov and noted that
he was in charge of the rebel operations in eastern Ukraine. He may even go by
a third name, Strelok, which is also a gun-related nickname.
3. He gets around.
The
fighting in Ukraine isn't Girkin's first combat experience. He's a veteran of
both the Russian and Soviet armies and has seen
action in Serbia, Chechnya and Transnistria, a Russian-backed breakaway
state in Moldova. He was also reportedly seen in Crimea during the time Russia
annexed the territory. Stella Khorosheva, a spokeswoman for the separatists,
says he "has rich military experience."
4. He enjoys historical re-enactments.
It's
been widely reported that Girkin, who was born in 1970, is an avid military
history buff to the point that he dresses up in costume for re-enactments.
There are pictures
of him on the Internet wearing medieval armor and uniforms from the World War I
era. He also belongs to a club called Markovtsy, a group dedicated to
re-enactments that was named after a Russian general killed by the Bolsheviks.
5. It's not clear what his ties to
Russia are.
Ukranian
intelligence authorities say
Girkin, who is from Moscow, is a top-level covert Russian operative. The United
States has accused Russia of sending "a steady flow of support" to
Girkin's operation. The Russian media, however, says that he served with the
Russian Federal Security Service, the country's internal security and
counterintelligence unit, but has long since retired. He and his supporters
maintain that they have no ties to Russia, and that Putin's government hasn't
given them a single gun or piece of military hardware.
6. He believes Russia should be doing
more to help his cause.
To
whatever extent Russia is involved
in stoking bloodshed in eastern Ukraine, Girkin believes the government should
take a more hands on approach to the conflict. He wants Putin's army to invade
and return eastern Ukraine, which the separatists refer to as
"Novorossiya," to its rightful place as part of Russia.
7. He dislikes the West.
It
may not come as a surprise to learn that Girkin has expressed strong
anti-Western sentiments, deeming
those societies "decadent." Girkin reportedly has a deep interest in
the history of his country and wants to instigate the re-establishment of the
Russian empire as a counterbalance to the West.
8. He has been sanctioned by the
European Union.
The
EU has imposed
sanctions on dozens of high-ranking Russian military officers and
pro-Russian separatists as the crisis in Ukraine continues unabated. Girkin was
added to that inauspicious list in April because European officials believe he
is on the staff of Russia's GRU, or it's military intelligence agency, and is
behind much of the fighting in eastern Ukraine. European leaders also cited him
for advising Sergey Aksyonov, the de facto prime minister of Crimea.
More from GlobalPost: Here's
all the evidence (so far) that pro-Russian separatists shot down MH17
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Strelkov dressed
as a White Guard of the Russian Civil War (specnaz.ru)
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