The investigation was in a hurry to arrest Strelkov

FSB officers did not have time to collect any of Strelkov’s documents except his passport

FSB investigators investigating the case of calls for extremism against Igor Girkin (Strelkov) were in the greatest possible hurry to petition the court for his arrest. As follows from the audio recording of the court hearing, available to Vorstka, FSB officers did not have time to collect any of Strelkov’s documents except his passport. The defense asked to postpone the hearing, but the court refused.

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From the audio recording it follows that the lawyers representing the interests of Igor Strelkov asked “to the maximum,” that is, until 72 hours from the moment of detention, to postpone the court hearing on the preventive measure in order to collect the necessary papers. According to them, from the case materials, which they were “given 20 minutes to familiarize themselves with,” it follows that of all the papers “characterizing the personality” of Strelkov, only his passport is in the file. “There is no information about his family, his health condition, or his personality. We need time to collect them,” noted the blogger’s defenders. At the same time, they pointed out that the case materials do not contain any data confirming the need to send Girkin to a pre-trial detention center. “The crime of which our client is accused [calls for extremist activity - Art. 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation] is classified as moderate severity. And it involves detention only in exceptional cases,” they noted. According to them, there is no evidence in the case that Strelkov’s case is one of these. Girkin himself only stated that he supported the lawyers’ requests.

Judge Olesya Mendeleeva rejected the defense motion. Among the arguments for such a decision, she named the investigation’s argument that Strelkov is a public and well-known person and can influence the course of the investigation while at large .

The security forces came to court with a motion to arrest Strelkov very quickly. According to the blogger’s wife Miroslava Reginskaya, operatives arrived at their home at about 11.30 am and “soon, according to the concierge,” they took Strelkov out by the arms and took him “in an unknown direction.” The consideration of the petition for his arrest began in the Meshchansky Court approximately six hours later. As is common practice, more than a day may pass between a suspect being apprehended, arrested, and charged .

Strelkov’s lawyers said that the reason for the case was two posts dated May 25 in his Telegram channel, where he talked about problems with payments to Russian paratroopers . Currently, there are no text versions of these posts in the channel. But in the evening of that day, Strelkov immediately posted several audio recordings with long video interviews in which he could talk about this.

Girkin became the first known “ultra-patriot” to face criminal charges and arrest for his statements critical of the Russian authorities about the war in Ukraine.

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