Russian saboteur Igor Girkin, nicknamed "Strelkov", has stated that by unleashing a war in eastern Ukraine in 2014, he "defended Russia and the Russian people". This way he reacted on social networks to the proposal of the Dutch prosecutor's office to sentence him to life imprisonment for complicity in the destruction of the Malaysian Boeing and the death of 300 people on board.
"I am pleased with how the Dutch prosecutor's office highly appreciates my services in protecting Russia and the Russian people in Ukraine, demanding life imprisonment for me and my comrades for a crime that we did not commit", - the terrorist wrote boastfully, having cowardly not admitted his participation in destruction of the passenger liner.
As reported by OstroV, the then little-known Igor Girkin (Strelkov) entered Sloviansk with a detachment of Russian saboteurs from the territory of Russia in April 12, 2014. His sabotage and reconnaissance group captured city police stations and the SBU, and Girkin himself declared himself "acting commander of the DNR militia". Later he confessed that the bloody war in Ukraine would not have begun without his detachment. "I still pulled the trigger of the war. If our detachment had not crossed the border, in the end everything would have ended, as in Kharkiv and Odesa. There would have been several dozen killed, burned and arrested. And that would have ended. In fact, the flywheel of the war, which is still going on, was launched by our squad", - the saboteur stated in an interview with the far right Zavtra newspaper. On July 17, 2014, under the leadership of Igor Girkin, a Russian Buk missile attacked a Malaysian Airlines passenger Boeing-777 on flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. 283 passengers and 15 crew members were on board of the liner: they all died. On December 22, 2021, during a hearing in the MH17 case, the prosecutor asked the court to qualify the actions of four accused, including Igor Girkin, under the article on the destruction of an aircraft, which provides for life imprisonment.