Jailed Russian nationalist Girkin wants to run for president

Pro-war Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, who is in custody awaiting trial for inciting extremism, has said he wants to run for president in the March 2024 election, his supporters said, citing a letter from prison.
Girkin, who is also known by the alias Igor Strelkov, has repeatedly warned that Russia faces revolution and even civil war unless President Vladimir Putin’s military top brass fight the war in Ukraine more effectively.
A former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who helped Russia to annex Crimea in 2014 and then to organise pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine, Girkin said before his arrest that he would be entering politics.
“A systemic crisis is brewing in Russia – or it is already in the grip of crisis – while the temperature of society is rising,” Girkin told Reuters in May. “We are on the cusp of very grave internal political changes of a catastrophic character.”