"To comment on Igor Bezler is to disrespect yourself.

I have not been in the bullpen (pre-trial detention center - ed.) and I do not plan to.

I will definitely be at the front sooner or later (this war, as I warned before, will be long and difficult).

But not right away," Girkin said on his page on the UKontakte social network.

Earlier, a number of Telegram channels and mass media stated that Girkin was allegedly detained in Crimea while trying to get to mainland Ukraine to participate in Russia's war against Ukraine.

First, the information about the "detention" of Girkin in Crimea was spread by one of the former leaders of the "DNR", Russian GRU officer Igor Bezler on the page of "UKontakt".

Officially, the Russian authorities did not comment on Bezler's information about Girkin.

The head of the Bellingcat publishing house Khristo Grozev, commenting on Twitter about the rumors about the "detention" of Girkin, said that this may well be a discredit campaign against him by his former bosses - who, of course, would have a copy of his passport, which they themselves issued".

Earlier, the publications The Insider and Bellingcat published an investigation that Girkin, herself, from November 2014 to February 2016 used a passport under the fictitious name Siarhei Runov.

In 2021, Dutch prosecutors requested life sentences for three Russians, including Igor Girkin, and one Ukrainian citizen, accused of involvement in the downing of Boeing Flight MH17, which was shot down over the Donbass in 2014.