Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, a military reenactor, monarchist, and probable ex-security officer held by many to be responsible for escalating the Donbas war in 2014 was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment today, not for shooting down the Malaysian airliner MH17 but for “extremism” (specifically, for complaining about incompetent Russian military and political leadership).
Unlike the ever-increasing numbers of political prisoners serving time for actions against the regime, Girkin will have quite a lot of freedom in the so-called ‘zona‘ as an inmate in the ‘general’ category of prison. In fact he is not going to prison, more like a guarded dorm/hall of residence in a kind of camp. He will get lots of time outside the shared dorm, walking around in the grounds and he will probably get nearly unlimited access to postal services and relatively unrestricted ability to spend money. I would take a bet that he could be transferred to a ‘colony-settlement’ where he’s effectively free to leave during the day. Some of my informants from my 2016 book were ‘colonists’ – i.e. on day release from prison. Formal and informal rules meant they could in reality spend loads of time in my little town of Izluchino. They used to ask us to buy them vodka and some of them were harmless while others scared the life out of me.
Meanwhile, the hapless Daria Trepova gets 27 years for the bomb murder (‘terror attack’) of blogger and pro-war activist ”Vladlen Tatarsky” (a name originally coined by author Pelevin). If you don’t know the case, Trepova bought a statuette as a gift to Tatarsky at an event in a cafe. It blew up and killed him. She will go to a stricter regime of prison colony than Girkin, as one would expect given the more serious charge.
I am still baffled by this case and whatever explanation you choose to believe is just bizarro-land. Estonian sim cards, the video of her close to the blast, the networks of people involved…. it’s just a gift to conspiracy theorists the world over. You can comfortably subscribe to a set up by the Ukrainians or the Russians. Then there’s the narrative account heard in the courtroom: that Trepova was very nervous herself, and that she and Tatarsky had a joke about a bomb (Tatarsky’s venue security had halted the statuette in the cloakroom)!
But the version of her knowingly bringing the bomb is then undermined – pretty comprehensively – by her own actions then and since. In the video she’s a few metres away from the bomb!
If you believe the version heard in court in Russia – Trepova is instructed by journo-cum-revolutionary cosplayer (coincidental link to Girkin!) now in Kyiv, but he in turn is linked with a pretty non-descript Ukrainian operative. It’s ironic that while the Girkin case gets some coverage today in Ukrainian media, Trepova gets none (which is only partly understandable given the Belgorod Ilyushin shootdown, which Russia alleged killed Ukrainian service personnel).
BBC Russian Service have a good write up. There’s no coverage on BBC Ukrainian service, despite them covering Girkin. Anyway, one take-away is: if you’re an antiwar liberal in Russia, be careful and don’t be naïve! Trepova might have gravitated to ‘anti-war’ action because of her sympathy with the liberal cause and then been exploited for it.
Why draw attention to Trepova case? Because it does rhyme with some allegations about the academic spying case in Estonia (inadvertent recruitment, exploitation for other purposes). I commented a few days ago on the generalities of that case and the missing links – I will write these up when we have more information. There are also big differences of course. The take-away from Trepova case, and also recent Insider interview with Bellingcat associate Grozev is that the Russian security services (and Ukrainian side, it would seem) are more likely to target the liberal-activist universe, not academics. These are largely separable spheres, even if individuals straddle them.
Once more, I’m not (yet) commenting on the Estonian case, but if you look at the logic of recruitment it is connected to accessing networks that are of immediate relevance to the aims of Ukraine/Russia and using ideological commitment of dupes as leverage.
Does that mean academics are not useful? No, I’m not saying that. Does that mean academics cannot be dupes or even willing accomplices. No, of course not. But it indicates the relative priority of targets. Academics are low down on that… Except, perhaps when intel services actually misunderstand the academic world (as having more influence and access than in reality) – as is clear from the Estonian interview from a few days ago. Perhaps the majority of academics even (outside tech/mil) are targeted in “error” (considered more useful than they could ever be).
Christo Grozev shows how much more useful/interesting is the activist diaspora community. He says that of 70 operatives, one targeted Russian human rights diaspora orgs, including the Sakharov Centre and Free Russia Foundation. The operative had been invited and attended many of their events. Grozev: ‘he had infiltrated and attended one of the important committees of these organizations on sanctions’…And was particularly interested in G. Kasparov. In that interview Grozev emphasises that, yes Russian foreign operations are still stupid (their documents are easily tracked), but so are Western organizations – allowing Russian agents unfettered access to the West on fake passports for years and years. It’s hard not to see the enthusiastic McCarthyite attacks on my colleagues in the past week as absurdly misplaced given the complacency of Western states in the face of what they now acknowledge as a major security threat – actual operatives bent on infiltrating and killing ‘enemies’.
Postsocialism 
What evidence is there that the Belgorod IL had Ukrainian POWs aboard? AFAIK only russian official press releases reference this and they are not to be trusted. And what does this have to do with Trepova?
Why is it ironic that Girkin gets more coverage than Trepova in UA media? If you have a sober attitude towards russians (and as a Ukrainian you will have a more sober outlook than the author who is based in a NATO country), you’re going to be skeptical of russian “liberals” (крым это не бутерброд).
From a practical, sober worldview, as a Ukrainian, your goal is disruption of the russian regime. The best source for this would be extreme-nationalists in the vein of Girkin. People who whitewash russian crimes will never bring this up, but the closest anyone got to disrupting Putin was Prigozhin, not alleged “liberals”. And there won’t be any change in russia. Putin dies, someone comparable or worse will come to power.
And then these the question of whether russian “liberals” are truly liberals or if as the old saying goes “russian liberalism ends at the border with Ukraine”.
The final part of the blog is some strange passive-aggressive commentary regarding Morozov. Estonian and Finish agencies are widely seen as having a more realistic and pragmatic understanding of russians than some other western european security institutions. If russians are a threat to your life (which they are for Estonians and the Finns), it’s always best to take a cautious approach and avoid naive fantasies.
P.S. The cherry on top is this subtle, noticeable attempt to position Ukrainian intel agencies as a sort of a little brother of the russians; doing the same but in a worse way. This is so annoying.
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I edited to make clear that it was only a Russian allegation about the shootdown of POWs – it’s relevant because its reporting might have pushed Trepova story off the pages (I don’t actually think that’s true, but it’s possible).
I did not ‘position’ Ukrainian intel as anything – that’s your reading from a misunderstanding. All intel agencies should be seen as having a relatively similar set of tools, MOs and internally-consistent institutional objectives (to get more money, to get more resources, and to gain political influence over their political ‘masters’). Ukraine, Russia, US and EU countries are not different in these respects. This is basic sociology of organizations (of course catching spies is NOT the primary purpose of counterintelligence).
Re: passive-aggression. Unlike MANY academics I have not leapt to conclusions re: Morozov while maintaining healthy skepticism about the wilder rumours. No doubt there were grounds to act as KaPo did, but it is in no way belittling of Estonian security services to also assume they are under huge pressure to come up with the goods for political reasons or that the case is much less significant than the coverage it has so far got – precisely because of the extremely marginal position (relatively speaking) occupied by the person in question. But here, I limit my comment to the absurd interview cited – it’s not passive aggressive to point out how poorly people understand academics’ work when the interview clearly shows that (the idea that there are hidden messages in the detainee’s work). We also see this poor understanding in other coverage – e.g. about university hiring and finance, published in Estonian yellow press.
I think it’s ironic (and perhaps telling that there’s no coverage of T) that Girkin gets more coverage than Trepova – because if she was curated by Ukraine-based people that’s quite something. Girkin is, and always has been, politically marginal, regardless of his ‘success’ in making himself important in 2014. No offence, but I think your comment about G (as useful to Ukraine) is wide of the mark, while I agree about the liberals not being very liberal.
Anyway, I don’t usually respond to anonymous comments, so I only write here the first things to come to mind.
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Ukrainians in captivity are subject to castrations, starvation, fingers getting cut off and suddenly the russians decided to leverage a relatively unique military plane to bring them to Belgorod? Did they also get served fresh lobster during the flight? Please share a link to the inflight menu.
The OG blogpost clearly positions Ukrainian intel as the “dumb but funny” younger brother of russian intel. They are only capable of low quality knockoffs of the real thing. They are incapable of their own strategy and methods that differ from the big brother that they dared to reject.
While at a very high level I agree with Morris’ description of intel agencies’ motivations (this description is not limited to intel agencies), there is one little thing that makes it different in the Ukrainian context.
If your town/city is overrun by the russians and you work in Ukrainian intel, your family is at best going to be prosecuted, more realistically your adult male family members are going to be tortured to death. This is a matter of fact unlike Morris’ attempts to whitewash russians (show me one example of a russian politician admitting that the Holodomor or the mass killing of civilians in Chechnya in the 90s was wrong).
One just has to look at the Horza missile strike to evaluate what russians are like. Their behaviour towards relatives of rebels’ families in Chechnya is another valuable reference for evaluating Morris’ argument.
I don’t deny that Estonian/Finn intel and leadership could do way more (deportation of all russian citizens, including oligarch-types with local “citizenship” – with full asset seizure) to protect their countries. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to take out a russian spy. The focus should be on taking out all collaborationists; be it in academia or business or fishing or just some random russian imperialist.
What is the big deal in the possibility that Trepova was managed by UA agencies? Respect to them if it’s true. The goal is to kick the russians out of Ukraine.
Why should one care about alleged russian “liberals?” Not only are Russian “liberals” committed to imperialism, but they are also a massive failure. They are cowardly and dishonest.
A Girkin led civil war would be very beneficial for Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and potentially other occupied peoples (e.g. Ichikeria, Tuva, Bashkortostan etc.). It would be especially helpfully if Girkin publicly emphasizes his imperial gibberish to make the US/EU more wary.
Morris does not understand that if you are Ukrainian this is a matter of life or death. Why would you care about a bunch of imperialists who (as per historical fact) lack empathy and always choose the wrong choice?
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