The commander who reorganized the Russian armed forces after the autumn debacle, General Sergey Surovikin (Novosibirsk, 56 years old), was dismissed by the Kremlin as chief of the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Federation because of his close ties to the Wagner mercenary company. After he was allegedly arrested and missing for two months since the failed uprising of June 23-24, the Russian press has confirmed the end of the so-called “General Armageddon,” as he is also known as a staunch supporter of the destruction of civilian infrastructure through systematic bombing, a doctrine he first used in Syria and then resumed when the invasion of Ukraine failed. Hours later, the leader of the Wagner mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died after his plane crashed in Russia.
The information about Surovikin’s dismissal was brought forward by veteran Russian journalist Alexei Venedíktov, director of a historical radio station shut down by the Kremlin at the beginning of the war, Echo Moscow. Several other media outlets later confirmed the existence of the presidential decree dismissing the general.
Surovikin’s last public appearance dates back to the weekend when Wagner’s boss Yevgeny Prigozhin led a rebel column to Moscow to demand the dismissal of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his chief of staff Valery Gerasimov. The mercenaries had taken Rostov-on-Don, the headquarters of the high command in the invasion of Ukraine, and were marching towards the capital without the army opposing or collaborating, save for a small skirmish in which several helicopters took part and a reconnaissance plane was shot down . .
“I’m asking you to stop. “The enemy is waiting for the political situation in our country to worsen,” the general said on June 24 in a video that immediately aroused suspicions about Surovikin’s body language and the location where she was recorded, a small cement room. Shortly thereafter, Prigozhin ended the mutiny after negotiations with Vladimir Putin mediated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Up until the mutiny, Surovikin was one of the most popular high commands in Russia. After the setbacks last autumn on the Kharkiv and Kherson fronts, the Kremlin elected him sole commander of its armed forces in Ukraine on October 8, 2022. His first step was to organize an orderly retreat from the city of Kherson to the opposite side of the Dnieper. Second, to fortify their new lines and launch a continuous mid-winter bombing campaign against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, which included power plants.
The peace in high command was short-lived, however, and was divided between supporters and critics of his secretary of defense. Prigozhin, openly at odds with Shoigu and Gerasimov, openly welcomed Surovikin’s appointment in October 2022. The same was true of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, then a staunch public defender of Wagner’s boss.
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The president of this Caucasus republic began distancing himself from Prigozhin earlier this year, when Surovikin was replaced by Gerasimov and the owner of Wagner began to level increasingly harsh public criticism at the Defense Ministry for not supplying him with the ammunition that he demanded in the Bakhmut offensive.
The Kremlin resolved this confrontation with a Solomonic solution: Surovikin, Gerasimov’s subordinate, would be the liaison between the Russian forces and the Wagner group. And when he rebelled, all suspicion fell on a military man who might have known about Prigozhin’s plans.
The general’s whereabouts had been unknown for two months. The Russian newspaper “Moscow Times” and the “Financial Times” reported in the week after the uprising that the military man had been arrested and interrogated in a pre-trial detention center. His wife declined to comment, and his daughter merely indicated that Surovikin was “fine.”
The general was relieved of his post by former Chief of the General Staff of the Aerospace Forces Viktor Afzalov, who temporarily assumed command of aviation when Surovikin was promoted to head of Russia’s forces in Ukraine.
According to various sources telling Russian media RBK, the ousted commander is now enjoying “a short vacation” and will be transferred to another position in the future. Follow all international information on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
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