Russian prosecutor seeks long jail term for nationalist Putin critic Girkin

Russian nationalist Kremlin critic and former military commander Igor Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, who is charged with inciting extremist activity, sits behind a glass wall of an enclosure for defendants during a court hearing to consider an appeal against his detention, in Moscow, Russia August 29, 2023. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

(Reuters) -A Russian state prosecutor asked a Moscow court on Thursday to jail prominent nationalist Igor Girkin, who accuses President Vladimir Putin and the army top brass of not pursuing the Ukraine war effectively enough, for nearly five years.

State prosecutors accuse Girkin, who is regarded in the West as a war criminal over the 2014 shooting down of a passenger plane over eastern Ukraine, of inciting extremism, something he denies.