The MH17 killer has been sentenced, but not in the Netherlands, not for life, and not for the murder of 298 people.
Igor Girkin, a pro-war Russian nationalist, was instead found to be complaining too much on social media about President Vladimir Putin’s leadership of the war against Ukraine.
A court in Moscow on Thursday found Girkin guilty on charges of inciting extremism after his series of diatribes against the Russian leader appeared to go too far.
Previously convicted in absentia at a Dutch court for the downing of the passenger jet MH17 traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in 2014, Girkin was sentenced on Thursday — after his domestic opposition to Putin — to four years in a Russian penal colony. His trial took place in a closed session.
Girkin’s old employer, the Federal Security Service (FSB) — successor to the Soviet-era KGB — initiated the case due to Girkin’s Telegram posts, which they deemed extremist. In those posts, Girkin condemned the leadership of two Russian regiments in annexed Crimea, suggesting harsh punishments for officials.
“Most families of mobilized soldiers did not receive any due payments for three months while the breadwinners were risking their lives and health on the front lines. … Execution by shooting is not enough for something like this,” Girkin wrote.
According to SOTA, a Russian independent news outlet, Girkin defended his posts in court as emotional, nonliteral expressions — without admitting any guilt.
These posts, however, did not comprise Girkin’s most severe critiques of Putin and the Kremlin. He labeled Putin as the “Supreme Non-Commander-in-Chief,” referred to Russian generals as “clowns,” and officials as “idiots.”
In pretrial detention, Girkin announced plans to challenge Putin in the 2024 election — but his candidacy was not registered.
In an interview with Russian media outlet Baza, released last December, he mentioned his fear of meeting the same fate as Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in a plane crash in 2023 after rebelling against Putin.
Girkin, a 53-year-old former colonel from the Russian spy service — who goes by the nom de guerre Strelkov (“Shooter”) — is notorious for leading Russian paramilitary troops into Ukraine’s Donbas region in 2014. He briefly served as defense minister in the Donetsk People’s Republic, a Russian puppet state.
In 2022, the Dutch court found him and two others guilty of murder in downing the MH17 passenger jet over Ukraine in July 2014, which killed 298 people including 196 Dutch citizens. They were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment. Girkin has denied any involvement in the missile shooting.
After Donbas, Girkin rebranded himself as an ultra-nationalist military commentator, criticizing Russia’s tactics in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In April 2023, he founded the “Club of Angry Patriots,” a nationalistic organization known for its critiques of the Russian government’s failures in the Ukraine war.
Sergey Goryashko is hosted at POLITICO under the EU-funded EU4FreeMedia residency program.