Ukrainian military intelligence puts a $100,000 price on blogger Strelkov’s freedom

The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced that it would pay $100,000 for handing Igor Strelkov (Girkin) over to Ukrainian captivity.

“We know that one of the most famous Russian terrorists has decided to resume his participation in the war against our government,” a press release said.

A range of pro-Kremlin military bloggers and “patriotic” Telegram channels reported that Strelkov was headed to the front. The channel “Operation Z: Russian Spring War Correspondents” claimed that he had gone to the front as a deputy battalion commander and that he had made a commitment “not to write anything else online.”

Strelkov regularly commented on the war in Ukraine, criticizing Russian leadership’s actions (in particular, he called for mobilization in Russia from the first days of the invasion). He posted his latest commentary on October 10.

Strelkov was also among the pro-Russian bloggers whose work Russia allegedly decided to monitor for “discrediting” the Russian army and fake news. There is no confirmation that such monitoring occurred.

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• Igor Strelkov is a former FSB officer who, in the spring of 2014, led a pro-Russian military unit in eastern Ukraine, and later occupied the post of defense minister of the self-declared “Donetsk People’s Republic.” Strelkov has called himself the man who “pulled the trigger of war” in Ukraine.
• In the Netherlands, prosecutors have requested a life sentence for Strelkov in connection with the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight 17. In Ukraine, there are several open criminal cases against him, including for terrorism and war crimes.