Russian terrorist Igor Girkin was sentenced to four years in prison for “incitement for extremism,” according to Russian media.

They also reported that he was found guilty by the Russian Moscow City Court.

He was detained in June 2023 and held in pre-trial detention until the verdict. The official reason for his detention was two statements published online, which were considered “extremist” by experts from the FSB Criminalistics Institute.

The prosecution in court demanded five years in prison for Girkin, but the court sentenced him to only four.

The conviction of the well-known ultranationalist and terrorist is also linked to his harsh critics of Putin; his supporters also claim the charges are only a formal reason for Girkin’s arrest.

Gherkin is former “defense minister” of the so-called Donetsk People Republic and FSB officer, also known as Igor Strelkov.

Igor Girkin

Girkin played one of the leading roles in the Russian invasion to the Crimean peninsula in 2014. He was in charge of one of the ‘Crimean Self-Defense’ units, which consisted of Russian citizens. Together with Russian servicemen, he seized facilities and military units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Girkin also participated in the organization of the separatist movement in Donbas. On April 12, he and 52 fighters crossed the state border of Ukraine in the Donetsk region and seized the administrative buildings of the city of Sloviansk, announcing the creation of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic.

In an interview with the Zavtra newspaper, Girkin claimed that he was the one who “pulled the trigger on the war” in 2014.

In November 2022, the District Court of the Hague sentenced him to life in prison in absentia, finding him guilty of involvement in the downing of the Boeing MH17 passenger plane in 2014 and the murder of 298 people.

Girkin is also accused of a number of other war crimes, including torture and executions in Ukraine. He created the so-called “military tribunals,” which, according to the terrorist himself, executed Yuriy Popravka and Yuriy Diakovskyi on his orders. Their bodies were later found with signs of torture in the Kazennyi Torets River near Sloviansk.

It is worth noting that the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine has set a payment of $100,000 for the extradition of a captured Russian terrorist.