Jailed Russian nationalist Girkin says he’d be a better president
MOSCOW: Igor Girkin, a prominent Russian ultranationalist in custody awaiting trial on charges of inciting extremism, said on Thursday he would make a better president than Vladimir Putin, describing him as gullible and “too kind.”
Girkin issued a Telegram post entitled “On running as a candidate for president of the Russian Federation,” suggesting he planned to stand in the March 2024 election, when Putin is expected to seek six more years in power.
The post was laced with irony and Girkin appears an unlikely contender. But his comments were notable for their direct public criticism of the president, whom he accused of misjudgment over the war in Ukraine, which Russia calls a “special military operation.”
Girkin said Putin was “an extremely gullible person.”
“The current president is too kind,” he added. At the start of the war, Putin had been “led by the nose” by Ukraine and the West, but also by Russia’s security agencies and defense industry.
“It turned out that neither the country, nor the army, nor Russian industry were ready for war, and so-called Ukraine was far from being a straw man in military terms.”
Nevertheless, the officials responsible were still in place and “continue to amaze us with their incompetence,” Girkin said. “I am not nearly so kind, which I will be able to prove in practice.”
Girkin said Putin had billionaire friends “to whom he cannot (due to the above-mentioned kindness and generosity of soul) refuse anything,” and that their wealth was growing faster than military.
LEADING CRITIC OF MOSCOW’S CONDUCT OF WAR
Since the death of mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash last week, Girkin is the most prominent remaining
