Sergei Surovikin: Russia’s ‘General Armageddon’ removed from office

State media reports that the man who led Vladimir Putin’s forces in Ukraine has been dismissed.

General Sergei Surovikin has not been seen in public since June 23-24 when Wagner group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led a failed mutiny.

Sergei Surovikin, the general once responsible for leading Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has officially been dismissed as head of the country’s aerospace forces, Russian media reports.

“Army General Sergei Surovikin has been relieved of his position in connection with his transfer to a different role,” a source told Russia’s RBC on Tuesday. “He is currently on a short holiday,” a defence personnel source told the paper.

The former editor-in-chief of the liquidated radio station Ekho Moskvy, Aleksandr Venediktov, also reported General Surovikin’s removal on Tuesday night.

“The commander of the VKS (Russian Aerospace Forces) has been relieved of his position,” he stated on Telegram.

General Surovikin has not been seen in public since June 23-24 when Wagner group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led a failed mutiny, marching on Moscow before ordering his fighters to stand down to avoid “bloodshed”.

Mr Prigozhin has shared his first video address since his aborted rebellion, appearing in a clip purportedly recorded in Africa.

Telegram channels thought to be close to Russia’s security ser­vices last week started reporting that General Surovikin was under a kind of “house arrest”.

Television personality Ksenia Sobchak noted General Surovikin had not been in touch with his relatives: “They say he was relieved of his post on August 18 by way of closed decree.”

Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin appears in his latest recruitment video.

Nicknamed General Armageddon by Russian media as a result of his brutal campaigns in Syria, General Surovikin publicly chastised Mr Prigozhin for the uprising, releasing an official statement telling him to “lay down arms” and “solve all problems peacefully under the leadership of the Supreme Commander”.

However, officials in Washington cited by The New York Times said General Surovikin had prior knowledge of Mr Prigozhin’s plans to rebel against Russia’s military leadership.

General Surovikin was appointed to his post as leader of Russia’s “special military operation” last October, replacing Gennady Zhidko, who died in Moscow last week after a “long illness” at the age of 57. Zhidko was removed from his post after Russia suffered a series of humiliating retreats in the northeastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv.

In January, General Surovikin was himself replaced by Valery Gerasimov, being demoted to General Gerasimov’s deputy.

Mr Prigozhin, wearing camouflage and clutching an assault rifle, was shown in what looks like a desert landscape in the video released on Monday night on Telegram channels linked to the Russian mercenary group.

“We are working, the temperature is 50C – everything we love,” the 62-year-old said to the camera, in an apparent recruitment drive. Armed men and a pickup truck appear in the distance.

“The Wagner group conducts reconnaissance and search activities, makes Russia even greater on all continents and Africa even more free. We hire real heroes and continue to fulfil the tasks that were set and to which we made a promise that we could handle.”

The most recent sighting of the Wagner chief, and the first since the warlord halted his mutiny, was in July when he was photographed on the sidelines of a summit in St Petersburg hosted by President Vladimir Putin for African leaders. Before that, websites linked to Wagner posted grainy footage that appeared to show Mr Prigozhin in Belarus.

The Times