Russian pro-war nationalist Igor Girkin, who is in pretrial detention awaiting trial on charges of inciting extremism, said on Sunday he wants to run for president but believes the March election will be a “farce” with a clear winner, Reuters reported.

Girkin, also known by the pseudonym Igor Strelkov, has repeatedly stated that Russia faces revolution and even civil war if President Vladimir Putin’s military leadership does not conduct the war in Ukraine more effectively.

Last year, a Dutch court found him guilty in absentia of murder for his role in the downing of flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, which killed 298 passengers and crew. Girkin denies his involvement in the case.

“I will run,” says the former FSB officer

A former officer of the Federal Security Service (FSB), where he helped Russia annex Crimea in 2014 and later organized pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine, Girkin said before his arrest that he and his supporters would enter politics.

“I understand very well that in the current situation in Russia, participating in the presidential campaign is like sitting down at the table and playing with cheaters,” Girkin said in a letter published on his Telegram account.

Girkin said he did not believe that he would be allowed to run for the elections, but hoped that his attempt to unite patriotic forces would thwart the Kremlin’s plan to hold a “simulation of elections” in which “the only winner is known in advance.”

“This is our chance to unite in the face of external and internal threats,” Girkin said in a letter titled “I will run.”

Putin has no real competitor

Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov said on Friday he hoped Putin would run for a new presidential term in March, keeping him in power until at least 2030.

Opposition politicians say that since coming to power in 1999, Putin has built a dictatorial system that mimics the institutions of democracy, stifling any real political competition or genuine dissent.

Putin’s supporters praise him for bringing order to the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

They cite polls that show he is supported by about 80 percent of the Russian population.

Who is Igor Girkin?

Girkin, who also served in Chechnya and the Republic of Moldova, was arrested in July.

Girkin, a monarchist who wrote a thesis on “White Russians” fighting the “Red” Bolsheviks after the 1917 revolution, is one of the most prominent nationalist critics of Russia’s conduct of the war, which he sees as part of an existential battle. with the arrogant West.

He called the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 “positive” but said the post-Soviet Russian elite was corrupt and working for the West to weaken Russia.

In May, Girkin said that despite his criticism of Putin’s failures, “Putin is currently the only legitimate figure in the Russian Federation.”

In August, he said he would make a better president than Putin, describing the Kremlin chief as “too kind” and “too trusting” of Russia’s security and military chiefs.

Literature:

• VIDEO Ihor Girkin created the “club of angry patriots”. “We are heading for military defeat”
• VIDEO. Girkin accused Prigozhin of preparing a mutiny in Russia after the mercenary leader once again sharply criticized the Russian army
• VIDEO Former Russian commander associates Putin with a mummy / “Where is she?” Completely freed during the war”