‘DPR’’s ex-Defence Ministry Igor Girkin refutes claims he had been detained in Crimea trying to get to the war front

Ex-Defence Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk “people’s republic”, Igor Girkin (alias Strelkov), has refuted the claims of his arrest in Crimea during an attempt to get to the Russo-Ukrainian front, by debunking the news on his Telegram channel.

“To comment on what Igor Bezler says is to have no self-respect. I have not been locked up and I am not planning to be. At some point, I will definitely go to the front (this war, just like I have warned, will be a long and hard one). But not right now,” he wrote in the post.

Saturday evening, 13 August, Donetsk people's militia commander, Igor Bezler, wrote on his social media that Girkin had been arrested in Crimea during an attempt to get to the front with a false passport under the name of “Sergey Runov”. Furthermore, Bezler published a photo of a man resembling Girkin; however, the man in the photo did not have a moustache.

The photo of the passport, which Girkin had allegedly used during his attempt, was spread on Telegram channels.

Later, Oleksiy Arestovych, Adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said during an interview on YouTube channel Feygin Live that “according to some reports, [Girkin] was let go and allowed to go fight in the Kherson region.”

Bulgarian investigative journalist, Christo Grozev, said on Twitter that Bezler’s claim could, in fact, have been part of a “discreditation campaign” against Girkin, conducted by his “former bosses” — “who would have a copy of his passport that they themselves issued of course.” According to Grozev, Gherkin “has become a clear liability” after his Telegram post on Friday, 12 August, in which he suggested that “the whole politbureau must be shot”.

In the middle of July, The Insider and Bellingcat published a joint investigation, in which they claimed that Igor Girkin (alias Strelkov), alleged poisoners of politician Alexey Navalny, and wife of Vadim Krasikov, the man sentenced to life in prison in Germany for murder of Chechen refugee Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, were all linked by cover passports with the same serial number that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) had given them.

The investigators think that the passport under the name of “Sergey Runov” is the cover passport issued for Girkin in FSB or GRU. “Judging by multiple databases, a person with such name and date of birth does not exist,” reads the investigation. Furthermore, “Runov” is the last name of Girkin’s maternal grandfather.

Igor Girkin (alias Strelkov) was one of the leaders of the separatist movement in Donbas in 2014. It was he who had announced the creation of the Donetsk “people’s republic”, speaking as the voice of the “separatists”. He commanded the armed groups on the “DPR” territory until August 2014; afterwards, he lost the support of the Kremlin and came back to Russia, he himself told The Insider in an interview.