"Putin Critic Igor Girkin Jailed for Extremism: What Led to His Four-Year Sentence?"

Igor Girkin, a former FSB officer and key figure in the fighting in Ukraine's Donbas region, has been sentenced to four years in a penal colony by a Moscow court on extremism charges, not for his role in the downing of flight MH17. Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, had been found guilty in absentia by a Dutch court for the murder of 298 people on MH17. His criticism of Putin and founding of a nationalist movement led to his arrest, signaling a crackdown on ultra-patriotic critics by the Russian authorities.