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Meet Vladimir Putin's real challengers (they're even worse than he is)

Ultra-nationalists like the bizarre Igor Strelkov are the force that Putin feels most need to bend to

30 August 2014

9:00 AM

30 August 2014

9:00 AM

Strange times throw up strange heroes — and in Russia’s proxy war with Ukraine, none is more enigmatic than the Donetsk rebel leader Igor Girkin, better known by his nom de guerre of Igor Strelkov.

In a few short months, Strelkov has gone from being an obscure military re-enactor to the highest-profile rebel leader in eastern Ukraine.

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Owen Matthews is the author of Stalin’s Children and Glorious Misadventures, and headed Newsweek’s Moscow bureau from 2006 to 2012.

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