MOSCOW, Aug 29 — Prominent Russian nationalist Igor Girkin failed in an appeal today against his pre-trial detention on charges of inciting extremism, a Moscow court said.

Girkin, also known as Strelkov, has fiercely criticised the way that Russia has conducted the war in Ukraine.

He is best known in the West for having been convicted by a Dutch court over the shooting down of a Malaysian passenger plane with the loss of 298 lives over eastern Ukraine in 2014. — Reuters