“All healthy forces need to create organisations which will take part in the political battle which is inevitable – and which has already started,” he said.
In Putin’s Russia, fiercely nationalist politicians and bloggers have since the war began increasingly taken on the role of critics of the military top brass, who they say are failing due to incompetence, corruption and even treachery.
The MH17 crash site in 2014 near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine.Credit: AP
The Kremlin did not comment on Girkin’s move. Putin, who is widely expected to run in the 2024 presidential election, says the special military operation will achieve all of its aims.
When asked if he was naive to think he could announce such a political movement in Putin’s Russia without the assent of the Kremlin, Girkin, 52, said: “I do hope you would not call me a naive person.”
He told reporters it was clear that the battle for the post-Putin era had already begun inside the Russian elite.
“No matter how critical I am of Putin, Putin is currently the only legitimate figure in the Russian Federation,” he said. If Putin were dislodged from power “it would mean the collapse of Russia”, he said.
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Girkin, who does not recognise Ukraine as a sovereign state and says much of it is part of Russia, said Russia would face defeat in the war unless it sacked top commanders, thieves and incompetents and began to fight in a much more serious way.
“If the current situation continues, then we will be defeated in this war,” he said, adding that victory for Russia would only be achieved if Ukrainian statehood was liquidated and cities including Kyiv were controlled by Russia.
Echoing Putin’s own framing of the war, Girkin said the West wanted to destroy Russia and trigger a coup to bring to power Western-backed politicians who would pillage Russia’s natural resources and destroy Russian Slav culture.
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“There will be no compromise: war will end with the Russian flag over Kyiv or the defeat of Russia with the aim of its partial occupation, its disarming and its de-sovereignisation.”
He said the group had little money and no major financial sponsors and had been forced to scrabble together enough money for the announcement, which was made under tight security in a Soviet-era Moscow hotel built for the 1980 Olympics.
The group’s other leaders include chairman Pavel Gubarev, a pro-Russian fighter from eastern Ukraine; Yuri Yevich, a military doctor; and Mikhail Aksel, a former member of the late Eduard Limonov’s Other Russia movement.
“Our task is either to help our country avoid the turmoil that is approaching or to create those positions on which we will act in that turmoil to prevent the destruction of Russia as a state and as a unique civilisation,” Girkin said.
Reuters
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