Russian sentenced to life over MH17 attack arrested by Kremlin

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London: The Russian army veteran who was sentenced to life in prison for downing flight MH17 while still at large has been detained by the Kremlin, his wife said, over his criticism of Vladmir Putin’s handling of the war in Ukraine.

Igor Girkin — a supporter of the war against Ukraine but a vocal critic of how Moscow has handled the invasion — was arrested by Russian security services at his home around noon on Friday (Moscow time), local media reported.

Igor Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, pictured in July 2014. He was detained on Friday, July 21, 2023.Credit: AP

A Russian nationalist and former intelligence officer, Girkin, who is also known as Igor Strelkov, helped Russia annex Crimea in 2014 and then organise pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine.

His arrest comes three days after he urged Putin to step down.

Girkin’s wife announced his detention on his Telegram channel, which has almost 900,000 subscribers.

“Today, at about 11.30am, representatives of the investigative committee came to our house. I was not at home at that time. Soon, according to the concierge, they took my husband out under their arms and took him to an unknown direction,” Miroslava Reginskaya wrote.

Reginskaya, who cited unnamed sources, said her husband had been accused of violating article 282 of Russia’s Criminal Code, “incitement to hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity”. The maximum punishment for the offence is six years in prison.

Girkin’s lawyer Alexander Molokhov told the BRIEF Telegram channel “the case was initiated under Article 282”. In a separate interview with RTVI TV channel, Molokhov said his client’s whereabouts were unknown.

In a post on Tuesday, the former Federal Security Service officer changed from criticising Putin’s military decisions to turning to the issue of his leadership of the country in general. He called Putin a “useless coward” and said the country could not survive another presidential term.

“For 23 years, a non-entity was at the head of the country, who managed to ‘pull the wool over the eyes’ of a significant part of the population,” Girkin wrote. Now he “is the last island of legitimacy and stability of the state”.

“The country will not survive another six years of power of this useless coward. The only useful thing he could do ‘before the curtain falls’ … is to ensure a transfer of power to someone truly capable and responsible.”

In November, a criminal court in the Netherlands found that Girkin, who was a commander of the Kremlin-backed separatist forces, had helped supply the missile system used to shoot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 on July 17, 2014.

The Boeing 777 commercial jet was shot over eastern Ukraine, killing 15 crew members and 283 passengers belonging to 17 nationalities, including 38 Australians.

Girkin had previously said he felt “a moral responsibility” for the deaths of the 298 people onboard the plane, but refused to admit to downing the passenger jet.

Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and pro-Moscow Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko were tried in absentia – a criminal proceeding when the defendant is not present in the court – since they were still at large.

They were all believed to be in Russia or Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine and were viewed as unlikely to face jail unless they travelled abroad.

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