Vladimir Putin extends his crackdown in Russia

On January 25thFSB a Russian court sentenced Igor Girkin, a former officer of the , Russia’s main security service, to four years in a penal colony for the crime of “public incitement of extremist activity”. His arrest last July, days after he had criticised Vladimir Putin’s wartime decisions and called the Russian president a “cowardly mediocrity” on social media, has sent shockwaves through Russia’s active community of pro-war nationalists, many of whom deem him a hero.Mr Girkin’s reputation rests on his paramilitary career; under the codename Strelkov (“Marksman”), he proved a key figure in both the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the initial organisation of rebel groups in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. He remains a strong supporter of both the war and Russia’s resurgent national project, notwithstanding running afoul of the Kremlin. The case has heralded a shift in Kremlin prison policy, which now not merely punishes critics of the war but also seeks to rein in the excesses of troublesome supporters.