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’.