Russia’s hardline critic of Putin and his leader, Strelkov, have been arrested

Russian authorities have arrested the outspoken pro-war blogger Igor Girkin, a hardline nationalist critic of Russia’s faltering military campaign in Ukraine, also known as Strelkov.

His wife said he was taken from their apartment in Moscow while she was away.

He later appeared in court charged with appeal over extremist activity, and could face up to five years in prison.

A former FSB intelligence colonel, Strelkov played a key role in Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea.

He went on to lead the Russian army by proxy in the ensuing war in eastern Ukraine.

Igor Strelkov was one of three men convicted in absentia by a Dutch court last November of murder for his role in a 2014 missile attack that brought down a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet over the conflict zone, killing all 298 people on board.

But with last year’s all-out invasion increasingly bogged down, Strelkov’s criticism of military failures and the commander-in-chief, President Vladimir Putin, has become more vocal.

“We already lost,” he told his social media followers last year.

A few days ago, he called the Kremlin leader a “non-existent” and a “cowardly waste of space”, says BBC Russia editor Steve Rosenberg.

Strelkov’s lawyer, Alexander Molokhov, confirmed that he had been arrested and said his apartment had been searched.

And RIA Novosti reported that he later appeared before the Meshchansky District Court in the northeast of the capital, where the judge refused his request to hold the session behind closed doors.

The war blogger has been allowed free rein to criticize the president and the military for a long time, so it’s not clear what prompted Russia’s investigative committee to accuse him at this point of using the internet to advocate “extremist activity.”

Since the beginning of the war, opponents of Russia’s so-called private military operation in Ukraine have been sentenced to long prison terms for much softer statements.

But earlier this week, retired Russian intelligence officer Vladimir Kvachkov was accused of “defaming” the Russian military. And he and Strelkov created the “Club of Angry Patriots”, broadcasting their criticism of Russia’s political and military leadership.

The BBC’s Russia correspondent, Ilya Barabanov, says Strelkov, 53, was considered untouchable for many years.

That was in part because of his previous role as a colonel in the Federal Security Service, but also because he was identified as a suspect and later convicted of shooting down Flight MH-17 while he was acting force commander for Russia in occupied Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

Russian investigative website Agentstvo reported that authorities have revised a previously unspoken rule allowing pro-war bloggers to express their anger as much as they please.

Commentator Tatyana Stanovaya said this was a moment that many of Bean feel siloviki – The president’s inner circle – was looking forward to it.

The powers of Prigozhin’s Wagner Group have been cut off since the failed mutiny last month, and the warlord himself has refrained from his past expletive-tinged speeches against the defense minister and army chief.

This week he appeared in a video, apparently filmed in Belarus, welcoming his fighters and saying Russia’s campaign in Ukraine was a “stain we want no part of”.

Of the 25,000 Wagner mercenaries, reports say, 10,000 are heading to Belarus while the others are “on vacation”. An independent report said that Vladimir Putin had made the final decision that Wagner would cease to exist in Russia itself.

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate welcomed Strelkov’s arrest as a sign that those within the Kremlin were approaching an “active phase of internal confrontation”.