Russian ultra-nationalist who has gotten away with criticizing the Kremlin for years is arrested after calling Putin a 'cowardly mediocrity'

Igor Girkin (Strelkov), the former top military commander of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" and nationalist blogger, detained earlier Friday and accused of extremism, sits inside a glass defendants' cage during a hearing to consider a request on his pre-trial arrest in Moscow on July 21, 2023.

Photo by ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

• A prominent Russian war blogger was arrested on Friday after months of criticizing Putin.
• Igor Girkin, a former FSB operative, had long flouted Russian laws forbidding wartime criticism.
• But the pro-war blogger was detained this week after calling Putin a "cowardly mediocrity."

A prominent Russian ultra-nationalist who has long skirted consequences for his Kremlin criticism was arrested this week after apparently taking his critiques of Russian President Vladimir Putin too far this time.

Igor Girkin, a pro-war, former FSB security operative who goes by the nom de guerre Stelkov, which is Russian for shooter, was detained at his apartment on Friday on charges of extremism. Girkin's wife posted news of her husband's arrest in a Telegram message to his nearly 900,000 followers before Russian state media confirmed his detainment.

But for all his critiques of the conflict in Ukraine, Girkin is decidedly pro-war, suggesting that Putin and his generals haven't gone far enough, and calling for the full mobilization of Russia's population. 

The arrest of Girkin signals a Kremlin crackdown on outspoken critics of Russia's war effort in Ukraine a month after Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin staged a short-lived mutiny that represented the most serious threat to Putin's power in more than two decades. 

For months, Girkin and other wartime personalities like him have been allowed to castigate the Russian government and military on Telegram, the social media platform that the Kremlin has yet to crack down on, in rants and raves that flout the country's ultra-strict laws forbidding wartime criticism.

The high-profile war blogger, who once led a group of Russian militants in Donetsk, said in an April YouTube video that Russia was heading "towards military defeat," and accused Russian media of glossing over the war's negative impacts on Russia.

In recent months, these bloggers have zeroed in on what they see as the ineptitude of Russian generals, oligarchs, and following the failed Wagner coup, even Putin himself.

Girkin's vitriol toward Putin seemed to ramp up even more in the aftermath of the Wagner rebellion. In a June 25 Telegram post, Girkin suggested that if Putin can't win in Ukraine, "he needs to legally transfer his powers."

Girkin's Friday arrest comes three days after Girkin made his boldest denunciation of Putin yet, saying, "the country will not survive another 6 years of this cowardly mediocrity in power," in a Telegram post.

In court on Friday, Girkin was charged with making "public calls to carry out extremist activities on the internet," The Financial Times reported. He was placed under arrest until mid-September amid an ongoing investigation and faces up to five years in prison, according to the outlet. 

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