Putin needs to make his little pet shut the ******** up. For a former intelligence officer, Girkin seems lack a lot of intelligence, does he not see that by spreading obvious falshoods that he only makes the separatists look all the more guilty?
He's probably trying to control info on the ground, giving his soldiers doubt about their own guilt, and an excuse not to believe they did anything wrong, but he's doing it in a way that only makes him look weak.
He should just keep his ******** mouth shut, stop posting stuff online, delegate that s**t to an officer who doesn't need the ego boost. He also needs to stop calling himself "Strelkov" (translation: "soldier" or "rifleman" ), it's pathetic, I doubt he's ever even been in combat and his soldiers probably know it and resent him for it. He's hurting his own cause.
Not that I support the Russian separatists, I just can't stand incompetent commanders. Come on Putin, he's not a good soldier, he's a terrible commander, you owe him nothing, he may be easy to control, and he'll be easy to get rid of once you don't need him, but that don't mean jack if he's hurting your image, and losing you the trust of your citizens and soldiers, cut him loose and find a commander with some brains.