Strelkov a.k.a. Girkin gained his notoriety in 2014 when the War in Donbas started. It was his page on VK, Russia’s social media, that mentioned “a downed bird” on 17 July 2014, a bird that later turned out to be a passenger MH17 flight with almost three hundred people onboard.
Later that year, Strelkov stated that it was his detachment that started this war: “If our detachment had not crossed the border, it would all end up just as it did in Kharkiv and Odesa. A few dozens of people would be killed, burned, or arrested. And that would be it,” he said as he spoke to the Zavtra newspaper.
Up until a certain point, it appeared as if Strelkov was entirely loyal to the Kremlin, and despite making some harsh statements, he seemed to be generally cut from the same cloth as Russia’s authorities.
“Strelkov matched some of Putin’s strategic goals and ideology,” political scientist Abbas Gallyamov notes. “At the same time, the utmost inefficiency of the system was evident to him, as well as its inability to reach the goals that this ideology dictates.”