Igor “Strelkov” Guirkin, who worked in Donbass during the war, is arrested and could be sentenced to five years in prison
Igor “Strelkov” Guirkin
247 Russian nationalist Igor “Strelkov” Guirkin, who is in prison, announced this Thursday (31) his candidacy for the presidency in 2024 as successor to President Vladimir Putin. After the Russian military operation in Ukraine, which he supports but which he believes was carried out incorrectly, he became a Kremlin critic.
“I think that I am more competent in military matters than the sitting president,” he said on Telegram. “I don’t have millionaire friends (like Putin) and therefore I won’t have to give in to his demands to the detriment of the Russian economy,” the opponent said. The ad received thousands of likes on the platform.
Strelkov, who was found guilty by the European judiciary of shooting down flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, which killed 298 passengers, was arrested in Russia in July this year. He faces up to five years in prison.
He, who served as Defense Minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic in 2014, was one of the most active participants in the fighting in eastern Ukraine that took place after the coup in Kiev in February of the same year.
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