Free Republic

While Moscow hails him for being an efficient mediator, Kyiv insists that Lukin sent the order to militiamen in Sloviansk from their Russian bosses. Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) released a transcript of an intercepted telephone conversation between Lukin and Igor Strelkov, head of the pro-Russian self-defense of Sloviansk. According to the SBU, Strelkov’s real name is Igor Girkin, a Russian national and colonel of Russian Military Intelligence. “I’m in Donetsk right now, in good company… You do sort of have a general idea about the task that I’ve been given, don’t you?” Lukin said. “Yes, I know, I’ve been warned…...

Pro-war Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, who is in custody awaiting trial for inciting extremism, said on Sunday he wanted to run for president even though he understood the March election would be "sham" with the winner already clear. Girkin, who is also known by the alias Igor Strelkov, has repeatedly said Russia faces revolution and even civil war unless President Vladimir Putin's military top brass fight the war in Ukraine more effectively. A former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who helped Russia to annex Crimea in 2014 and then to organise pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine, Girkin said before his...

Strelkov said the 'smuta' - pre-revolutionary turmoil - has already started. He claimed Prigozhin is acting with unidentified figures inside Putin's power structures and one serious blow to Russia's war effort by Ukraine could trigger huge changes. 'No later than late summer the internal political situation in the country might change beyond recognition,' Strelkov, who has 800,000 Telegram followers including many mid-ranking Russian soldiers, said. 'Prigozhin has declared war on part of the military and state elite,' he said. 'Naturally he is not alone. If he was just by himself, he would have been eliminated,' Strelov said, pointing to how...

A former Russian commander and prominent military blogger has given another scathing assessment of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in which he described how Vladimir Putin's troops had already been dealt a "strategic defeat" by Ukraine. Igor Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, is an army veteran and former intelligence officer who played a key role in Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the conflict in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. He is among a number of milbloggers who give candid accounts of Russia's war effort that are far removed from the picture portrayed by Kremlin-backed television channels. On his Telegram...

“The war in Ukraine will continue until the complete defeat of Russia,” protested Igor Girkin, a far-right nationalist, in a video address to his 430,000 Telegram followers on Monday. “We have already lost, the rest is just a matter of time,” he writes characteristically.

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani tweeted on 27 March 2022:That's why Russian military are so pessimistic about their perspective in Ukraine. Consider Strelkov. For 29 days Russia didn't achieve strategic success on any directions"My worst fears came true, we get involved into a long, bloody, and very dangerous war"https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1507819910105239553

SLOVYANSK, Ukraine (AP) — When shadowy commander Igor Strelkov appeared before the cameras recently in green combat fatigues and a clipped mustache, he did more than reveal the face of the insurgency rocking eastern Ukraine. He strengthened the case that Russia is behind the turmoil.

But it may be Andriy Parubiy, the head of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, who holds the true smoking gun. Parubiy, a former lawmaker and Euromaidan protest leader, announced on April 15 that SBU agents had detained officers from the Russian Defense Ministry's main intelligence wing, the GRU, for involvement in the eastern actions. The "Kyiv Post" later identified the main detainee as Igor Strelkov, a GRU commanding officer and the leader of the paramilitary group that has taken control in the eastern city of Slovyansk. The SBU said Strelkov arrived in Crimea at the beginning of March and...