Jailed Strelkov urges overthrow of Putin's regime
Igor Strelkov (Girkin), a pro-war Russian figure serving a prison sentence in Russia, has written in a letter that the country is heading for collapse unless the regime changes. His supporters published the letter.
Igor Strelkov, whose real surname is Girkin, a former Russian separatist leader in Donbas and a supporter of the war, has released a letter from prison criticising Russian President Vladimir Putin and effectively calling for a change of power. The letter was published by his supporters. Strelkov is serving a four-year sentence in Russia for calls to extremism, and his words reflect criticism coming from within the war's own supporters.
In the letter he claims Russia faces the fate of Yugoslavia, meaning collapse, if the current regime stays. He believes improved relations with the United States will not save Russia, and he rejects the picture of imminent victory promoted by state media. In his view Ukraine has reached a balance of forces: the front is stuck, while Kyiv is able to hit military-industrial and energy facilities deep behind Russian lines, including Omsk and Tyumen.
"We have NO chance of successfully finishing this war. Under the current Kremlin leadership – absolutely not," he writes. He called the power structure built by Putin "astonishingly incompetent", argued that the regime can no longer change the course of the war, and said a new mobilisation would be a catastrophe. He sees a way out only if the power structure and its leadership change.
Who is Strelkov
In 2014 he took part in the annexation of Crimea and led a militant attack on the city of Sloviansk in Donbas. In the self-declared "Donetsk People's Republic" he served as defence minister and military commandant, later moving to Moscow. He backed the 2022 invasion of Ukraine but criticised the army and state leadership for what he saw as insufficiently aggressive warfare. On 21 July 2023 he was detained and charged with extremism. The case concerns two Telegram posts in which the Federal Security Service (FSB) saw calls to extremism; he denies guilt.
On 17 November 2022 the Hague District Court sentenced him in absentia to life imprisonment in the case of the downing of a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane over Donbas on 17 July 2014, which killed 283 passengers and 15 crew members.
