Russian nationalist Igor ‘Strelkov’ Girkin – who helped Moscow annex Crimea and downed flight MH17 – announces intention to face Putin in ‘sham’ elections… from his jail cell

• Igor ‘Strelkov’ Girkin announced his intention to face off against Vladimir Putin

A prominent ultranationalist has announced his intention to face off against Vladimir Putin in Russia’s next presidential elections.  

Igor ‘Strelkov’ Girkin is currently in custody in Russia awaiting trial on charges of inciting extremism, but has nominated himself to run for president in 2024. 

He said that he hoped his bid for office would help disrupt the Kremlin’s sham election plans in which ‘the only winner is known in advance’.

Girkin, 52, claimed in a letter published on his Telegram channel on Sunday that he understands ‘perfectly well’ that ‘participating in the presidential campaign is like sitting down at a table to play with card sharps’.

But he still instructed his supporters to set up a campaign headquarters and to begin collecting signatures for his candidacy – even though he knows he would not be allowed to stand as president.

It comes after Girkin said from custody in August that he would make a better president than Putin, whom he described as ‘too kind’. His comments at the time were laced with irony and he is considered an unlikely contender.

Igor Girkin (pictured) has announced his intention to face off against Vladimir Putin in Russia’s next presidential elections

Girkin said from custody in August that he would make a better president than Putin, (pictured) whom he described as ‘too kind’

Girkin, who lost an appeal against pre-trial detention in a Moscow court in August, is best known in the West for his conviction in absentia by a Dutch court for his role in shooting down Malaysian passenger plane MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014 with the loss of 298 passengers and crew. He has denied he was involved. 

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 arrest that he and his supporters were entering politics. 

Russia has cracked down on nationalist critics, who have called for a much tougher approach to fighting the war, including martial law and a country-wide mobilisation, after the failed June mutiny by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Prigozhin was killed in August in a plane crash, the causes of which are unclear. Girkin, who has also served in Chechnya and Moldova, was arrested in July.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Putin has unprecedented support and that he would win an overwhelming majority if he ran. 

Girkin, 52, in a letter published on his Telegram channel on Sunday said that he hoped his bid for office would help disrupt the Kremlin’s sham election plans in which ‘the only winner is known in advance’

Girkin, a monarchist who wrote a dissertation on the ‘White Russians’ who fought the ‘Red’ Bolsheviks after the 1917 revolution, is one of the most prominent nationalists who has criticised Russia’s execution of the war, which he casts as part of an existential battle with an arrogant West.

He has called the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union ‘positive’ but says the post-Soviet Russian elite was corrupt and working for the West to weaken Russia.

In a post on its Telegram channel, SOTA carried a video of Oleg Nelzin, whom it described as co-chair of a group called Russian Movement for Strelkov, reading a letter from Girkin at a news conference.

The letter instructed his followers to set up a headquarters and start collecting signatures for his candidacy, SOTA said. 

Supporters of Girkin said in September that his criminal investigation had been extended until December 18.

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