Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine has been devastating and appears to be stalling. Now there’s a new general with a reputation for being brutal.
After Ukraine recently regained more territory than the Russian army had occupied in the previous six months, the Russian Defense Ministry on Saturday appointed Sergei Surovikin as the new commander in chief of war operations.
As Chief of Staff of the Russian Air Force, Surovikin previously played a key role in Russian operations in Syria, where Russian warplanes wreaked widespread havoc in rebelheld areas.
CNN spoke to a former Russian air force lieutenant, Gleb Irisov, who served under his command in Syria.
Irisov said Surovikin was “very close to the Putin regime” and had “never had any political ambitions, so he always carried out plans exactly as the government wanted”.
Analysts say Surovikin’s appointment is unlikely to change the way Russian forces conduct the war, but that it does indicate Putin’s dissatisfaction with previous commando operations. It also serves in part to “appease” the nationalist, prowar faction in Russia itself, according to Mason Clark, a Russia expert at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who called on Russia to take “more drastic action” following recent setbacks, including the use of “lowpower nuclear weapons” in Ukraine, welcomed the appointment of Surovikin, who first fought in Afghanistan in 1980 before he 2004 led a unit in the Second Chechen War. The praise for Kadyrov, who is a key Putin ally, is significant given his own reputation for crushing all forms of dissent.
“Personally, I have known Sergey very well for almost 15 years. I can say without a doubt that he is a true general and warrior, an experienced, persistent and visionary commander who always puts patriotism, honor and respect above all else,” Kadyrov added posted the news of Surovikin’s appointment on social media last Saturday. “The entire army is in good hands now,” he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin received in the Kremlin on December 28, 2017 members of the Russian armed forces who took part in operations in Syria, including Sergey Surovikin.
“They hated him”
Irisov, a former subordinate of Surovikin, ended his fiveyear military career after serving in Syria because his political views conflicted with his experience. “Of course we understand who is right and who is wrong,” Irisov said. “I witnessed a lot of things because I was inside the system.”
Irisov then began his hopedfor career as an international journalist, as a military reporter for the Russian state news agency TASS. His wife worked there, and he felt at the time that it was “the only major news agency” trying to spread the news “unbiasedly,” with “some opportunity for free speech,” Irisov said.
Gleb Irisov photographed early in his military career during winter military training near Moscow, Russia.
Gleb Irisov photographed while serving in the Russian Air Force in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
“Everything changed” on February 24, 2022, when Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began and TASS received orders from the security service FSB and the Ministry of Defense “that everyone will be prosecuted if they don’t carry out the propaganda plan,” Irisov said.
He had family in Kyiv hiding in bomb shelters, and he told CNN he knew “nothing can justify this war.” And he also knew from his military contacts that there were already many victims in the early days of the war.
“It was clear to me from the start,” Irisov recalls. “I was trying to explain to people that this war would lead to the collapse of Russia… it will be a great tragedy, not only for Ukrainians but also for Russia.”
Irisov fled Moscow with his pregnant wife and child on March 8, 2022 after speaking out against the invasion. He has quit his job at TASS and signed petitions and an open letter against the war, he told CNN. After traveling through Armenia, Georgia, Turkey and finally Mexico, where they asked the US Embassy for help, the couple are now struggling to start a new life in West Virginia.
Gleb Irisov with his wife Alisa Irisova in the last photo they took before leaving Russia on a flight to Armenia in March 2022.
During his service at Syria’s Latakia Air Force Base in 2019 and 2020, the 31yearold says he worked in aviation security and air traffic control, coordinating flights with Damascus’ civil airlines. He says he saw Surovikin several times during some missions and spoke to senior officers under his command.
“He made a lot of people angry, they hated him,” Irisov said, describing how the “straightforward” and “frontal” general was not appreciated at headquarters for trying to bring his infantry experience to the Luftwaffe.
Irisov says he knows Surovikin had close ties to the Kremlinsanctioned private military group Wagner, which operates in Syria.
The Kremlin denies any links to the Wagner Group and insists private military contractors are illegal in Russia.
Earns the title “Hero”
Surovikin, whose military career began in 1983, has a very mixed track record.
In 2004, according to Russian media reports and at least two think tanks, he reprimanded a subordinate so severely that the subordinate committed suicide.
A book by the Washington DCbased think tank Jamestown Foundation goes on to say that during the failed coup attempt against former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, soldiers under Surovikin’s command killed three protesters, forcing him to serve at least six months in prison.
CNN contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment on Surovikin’s appointment and allegations that he was an extremely tough leader.
In a 2020 report, Human Rights Watch called him “someone who may have command responsibility for dozens of air and ground attacks on civilian targets and infrastructure in violation of the laws of war during the Idlib offensive in Syria between 2019 and 2020.” According to HRW, citing UN figures, at least 1,600 civilians were killed and around 1.4 million people displaced in the attacks.
Vladimir Putin (left) clink glasses with then Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev next to Sergei Surovikin after a ceremony to award medals to soldiers who fought in Syria, December 28, 2017.
During his time in Syria, the 56yearold soldier was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation.
In February this year, Surovikin was sanctioned by the European Union in his capacity as head of the Aerospace Forces “for actively supporting and implementing policies and policies which undermine the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence, as well as the stability or security of the country and threaten Ukraine”.
Irisov believes there are three reasons he is now in charge of Ukraine: his closeness to the government and to Putin; his varied experience in both infantry and air force; and his experience commanding Russian forces in the Kherson, Zaporizhia and Crimea regions of southern Ukraine since the summer. Putin is trying to control these areas “at all costs,” said Irisov.
Just two days after Surovikin’s appointment on Saturday, Russia carried out the heaviest bombardment of Ukraine since the beginning of the war.
Surovikin is “more familiar with cruise missiles, maybe he used his contacts and experience to organize this chain of devastating attacks,” Irisov said, referring to reports that cruise missiles were some of the weapons Russia used in this latest wave of attacks.
But Clark of the ISW suggests that the general’s promotion is “more a matter of setting a framework for injecting new blood into the Russian command system” and “putting on a tough nationalist face.”
His appointment “has received widespread praise from several Russian military bloggers as well as Yevgeny (Prigozhin), the Wagner Group financier,” Clark said.
He believes what is happening now is a reflection of what happened in April, when another commander, Alexander Dvornikov, was appointed supreme commander of operations in Ukraine.
“Previously, he was also the commander of one of the Russian force groups, and in Syria he gained a reputation as a brutal leader, like Surovikin, which earned him the nickname ‘Butcher of Aleppo,'” Clark said.
Dvornikov was also then seen as the commander “who would turn the situation around in Ukraine and get the job done,” he added. “But a single commander will not be able to reverse the tangle of Russian command and control at this point in the war, nor the low morale of Russian forces.”
Andrea KendallTaylor, director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, also told CNN this week that Surovikin’s appointment “reflects the rise of many more radical voices in Russia … make changes and bring in someone who is.” ready to carry out these ruthless attacks.”
Clark explains that “from what we’ve seen, it’s highly likely that Putin is involved in decisionmaking at the tactical level, and in some cases bypassing senior Russian officers to interact directly on the battlefield.”
Surovikin personally signed Irisov’s resignation papers from the Air Force, he says. Now Irisov sees himself taking over operations in Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine, but what impact the general will or could have remains unclear.
According to Clark, “There is no good option for the Kremlin if Surovikin fails in his mission or if Putin decides he is not up to the task either.” There aren’t many other senior Russian officers and that will only further worsen the Russian war effort.”