MOSCOW

A court in Moscow on Thursday sentenced to four years in prison former Russian military commander Igor Girkin, who served as a commander in Russian-controlled areas of Donbas in eastern Ukraine in 2014, founding him guilty of calls to extremism.

Girkin, who uses the pseudonym Strelkov on social media platforms, did not plead guilty. In response to the sentence announcement, he said: "Serve the Fatherland!"

He is a former officer of the Federal Security Service. After resigning he started a Telegram channel, which quickly became popular and has almost 900,000 followers.

Girkin is known for his support for the war in Ukraine, which started in February 2022, and his harsh criticism of the strategy pursued by the Russian military chiefs.