[LINK] "Should Putin Fear the Man Who 'Pulled the Trigger' in Ukraine?"

[rfmcdonald]

The Moscow Times carries Lucian Kim's Reuters article reporting on Igor Girkin, a Russian volunteer who claims to have played an outsized role in creating the autonomous Russian-backed republics in the Donbas. The author notes that Girkin might, by virtue of his military achievements, be a potential player for power in Russia proper.

The official Kremlin narrative on the war in eastern Ukraine is clear and simple: after seizing power in February, a Western-backed "junta" in Kiev sent neo-Nazi gangs — then tanks and warplanes — to stamp out peaceful protests by the Russian-speaking community. The locals who took up arms are freedom fighters, and the only help they get from Russia is humanitarian aid. For the past six months, Russian state television has carpet-bombed its viewers with this message, day in and day out.

Now one of the leaders of the rebellion in eastern Ukraine has turned the Kremlin storyline on its head. Igor Girkin, a retired Russian special ops officer also known as Igor Strelkov or simply "Strelok" (Shooter,) was the military commander of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic before getting abruptly recalled to Russia. In an interview published last week in the Russian ultranationalist weekly Zavtra, Girkin details how he helped instigate the insurrection and active-duty Russian soldiers later intervened to save the rebels from the jaws of defeat.

Girkin is a loose cannon. He views himself as a warrior in a bigger war against a godless West that has lost its Christian roots and thirsts for Russia's resources to feed its decadent ways. Girkin prides himself on his service to the greater Russian cause and has no reason to toe the Kremlin line. Hardcore Russian nationalists already consider him a worthy alternative to President Vladimir Putin.

For Girkin, there is no question of who started the conflict; he claims to have started it himself. "I'm the one who pulled the trigger of war. If our squad hadn't crossed the border, it all would have ended like in Kharkiv or Odessa. There would have been a few dozen killed, burned, and arrested. And that would have ended everything," Girkin says. "Our squad set the flywheel of war in motion. We reshuffled all the cards on the table."

When Girkin and his men took over the town of Slovyansk on Apr. 12, cities in eastern and southern Ukraine had been experiencing weeks of protests by demonstrators waving Russian flags and demanding a referendum on autonomy. The protesters called their rallies "anti-Maidan" — an answer to the pro-European demonstration in Kiev that swept then-President Viktor Yanukovych from power. Having just lost Crimea to Russia without a fight, the provisional government in Kiev was confused and unresponsive. Meeting almost no resistance, pro-Russian protesters stormed the regional administration in Donetsk and proclaimed a "People's Republic." Less than a week later, Girkin led the takeover of a string of towns north of Donetsk.